


The Firebird

by MinervaNorth



Series: Leverage International: Europe West [2]
Category: Leverage, White Collar
Genre: F/M, Violence, just another attempt at me fixing canon, of course there's sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-26
Updated: 2019-11-26
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:24:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 32,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21573244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MinervaNorth/pseuds/MinervaNorth
Summary: Under the name Eulalie Lacey, Bea disappeared back to Paris after the incident with Damien Moreau in New York. With flash drive in hand and the intention of hiding until needed, she went back to her quiet life of piano playing and planning heists as the Virtuoso—but her quiet life wasn’t bound to stay quiet. Brandon Foley has found her, and has blackmailed her into doing his bidding, lest he tell Damien Moreau where she is.For now, though, she’s decided to pursue Danny Beauchamp, the art and music lover who happens to be passing her requests on cafe napkins. He seems innocent enough, but he’s much more connected to why she’s hiding than he seems.
Relationships: Neal Caffrey/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Leverage International: Europe West [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1542628
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	1. Prelude: Overture

The flutter of old sheet music in the wind, the smell of coffee coming up from the café below. The sight of le Tour Eiffel from my open balcony doors. This is not a life I was ever supposed to lead, but here I am, sitting at the bench of my grand piano.

I am relieved to be back. With the promise of fall coming on the smell of pumpkin spice, I’m glad to forget everything that happened in New York City. For now, at least. It’s been a month since I heard from any of them, and I’m strangely pleased. My exile can continue without delay.

For now, I continue to remind myself. For now.

I wonder if I’ll get a note today. The handwritten letters on café napkins, all from the same man, usually lead to requests. Every Wednesday and Friday at 10 in the morning. That’s when I expect him. M. Beauchamp.

Regardless of whether he intends to send up a note or not, I start the day with_ L’isle Joyeuse_. He’s been fairly vocal about the Debussy. Maybe I’ll coax him out. Not that I care. The fact of the matter is, I don’t know what to play today, and his direction would be much appreciated, that’s all.

It takes until the “Un peu cédé” section for the slight knock, the one I recognize from the usual café employee he pays to slide the note under my door. I don’t stop until I’m finished with the piece, but once I do, I quickly scramble to my door. The pen ink smudged a little, but I can read the elegant looking handwriting—

_Pourrais-je vous déranger pour un Liszt? J'admire toujours votre Liebestraum. Tu m'as manqué. La vôtre, M. Beauchamp. _

Next to it is a detailed drawing—in pen—of le Tour Eiffel. It’s not the first drawing he’s given me.

I set the note on the edge of the piano, knowing I will just have to slip it into my hidden book later, and find my music for _Liebestraum_. It really is one of my favorites, too, and with the autumn breeze taking the smell of baked goods up to my sitting room, it truly makes me happy to be living in Paris.

Living, or hiding? I sometimes don’t know.

I barely breathe until I hit the last page, rounding out the piece with the final chord. The world seems to go silent, until I hear one person applauding. This is the first time.

Without a second thought, I slip from behind the bench and shuffle to my balcony. Looking over the edge, I see the sidewalk seating, the café’s outdoor bistro tables, and find the one person clapping. He wears a smart suit, with a bright, skinny tie—cobalt turquoise, a color I have in my oil paints—and matching pocket square. But he’s folding his newspaper, and he stands up, grabbing what seems to be a fedora from the table.

Regardless, he does what I hope he does: he looks up, still holding his fedora, and squints up into the sun. I stand up straight from leaning on the railing, and he gives me a single nod. With a flourish, he spins his hat, sets it on his head, and pulls it down over his eye before heading down the street.

He’ll be back on Friday. I just worry about whether he would ever want to meet. What story would I tell him? What name would I give him? What character would I play?

One thing is for certain: my name is not Eulalie Lacey.

* * *

I slide into my classroom on Thursday, leaning on my cane. I don’t really need it anymore, but I have to keep up my cover story. My French accent has drastically improved over the past year. Although I was already fluent, immersion definitely helps fine tune the language.

“Bonjour, classe,” I begin, then instruct them to find the chapter on Debussy and Ravel.

There is an unfamiliar face in the back. I don’t recognize him, but I don’t think anything of it, other than to study him for a moment. He doesn’t have a book, so he leans in towards the young lady beside him, who looks absolutely smitten. She should, too, with his dress shirt sleeves rolled to the elbow, a side smirk that makes him just slightly untrustworthy, that hint of stubble, the unruly dark hair.

I’m fine until he glances up to me: his bright blue eyes, cobalt turquoise.

Immediately I know it’s Monsieur Beauchamp, but he can’t know that I know. Why would he be here? What does he want? Is he following me from another life, another name?

For now, I have to teach a class. The best way to maintain my cover is to teach.

I start the conversation about Impressionist music, and get the students to start discussing the techniques utilized, what shaped their style. That unfamiliar voice speaks up. His accent isn’t a native French speaker, I know that for a fact, but he has the accent of one who has lived here for several years.

“Much like the painters of the time, Impressionism conveyed moods, emotions. The aesthetic itself started with the painters, more specifically, Monet’s _Impression: Sunrise_.”

“Since you are so knowledgeable, can you explain to the class how Impressionist painters created their work?”

He leans forward in his seat, settling in nicely. He gives me a slight smirk before continuing.

“The way the Impressionist painted shaped the iconic style. Not just stylistically, but in their tactics. Wet paint on wet paint would create soft edges, many would avoid black for its sheer darkness on the canvas. They would use natural light on their subjects; it was more about the colors and shadows and bright areas rather than blocks of artificial color. Softness, lightness, a sort of freshness came into the previously dark, heavy, paintings from earlier periods.”

Oh, he’s going to be a handful. I know it.

It takes me a moment to recover, and I acknowledge the comment as correct before continuing on. On the screen, I bring up Impression: Sunrise. I had chosen this photo of the piece of art particularly, as it had been taken by the Musée Marmottan Monet in the last five years. I give the class time to look over the piece; in reality, I need a moment to look over it as well.

The copy of _Impression: Sunrise_ in that particular museum is definitely my best work. They have yet to identify it as a forgery. The original piece hangs in a very special place near my grand piano: one of the only pieces I’ve kept for myself.

The forgery, therefore, is what I show to my class that Thursday morning. It truly is a proud moment for me, and once I regain my bearings, I allow the class to continue. The man in the back—Beauchamp—leads the discussion, and once the class is over, he disappears, or so it seems. I try to stop myself from following him. Whether he is innocent in all this or whether he has a game to play, it is not worth trying. I learned that long ago.

I get a taxi home that afternoon, but decide halfway home on a different destination. I recognize my tail once I pass the Tuileries. Would he really be that dense to follow me? It depends on what he wants. I’m not quite sure. I’ve spent so long casing places for exits, not trusting anyone I come in contact with. Maybe you’ve been alone too long. Maybe you’ve been Eulalie too long.

But I can’t. I can’t leave just because one man decided to follow me for a few minutes. Regardless, I go along with my routine: I slip into the Musée d’Orsay, slip past the typical tourists, and automatically head up the escalators. Le Galerie des Impressionistes is normally where I spend my extra afternoons: the first few rooms, I admire the Pissarros, the Sisleys, the Degas ballerinas. The massive number of Monets. But once I complete my mission of taking in each one, I slip down to a lower floor, to the post-Impressionistes, to room 69: “_Londres, le Parlement. Trouée de soleil dans le brouillard.”_

I shouldn’t linger, I know. If I ever get back to what I do best, it will be too long a wait.

“It seems so simple, but remains one of the most complex paintings of its time, is it not?”

The familiar not-so-French accent sounds behind me, but I refuse to turn around. Instead, I stay, looking at the painting, taking in each brush stroke.

“It’s in the brush strokes,” I respond in kind. “You can see how each brush stroke is a different color. In the shadows, in the fog. The light, breaking through the clouds. It wouldn’t take much to squint and make it fade away.”

“And how do you feel about that?” He asks, appearing next to me.

“About what?”

“Fading away.”

I glance up at him, continuing my ruse of not knowing who he is. The hat should be a dead giveaway, but I’m not playing into his hand.

“I do not intend on fading away. I intend on making sure everyone knows my name.”

I leave him standing in front of the Monet, hopefully leaving him to ask himself the same question. It’s doubtful he’ll have the same answer.


	2. Più agitato: Agitated

I settle onto my piano bench at nearly 10 on Friday, but there is a knock on the door before my clock strikes. This is not his usual routine, but I head over to the door. The note was not left under my door this time—instead, I open it, and the young barista from downstairs holds onto not a napkin but an actual sheet of paper this time.

“Pour vous,” he says, handing it over. “De M. Beauchamp.”

I thank him, and he leaves to head back to his post. I quickly unfold the note paper, finding that elegant scrawl once again. I automatically translate it in my head.

_Dinner with me tonight at 9? Meet me outside le café. R.S.V.P. with that Mozart Sonata in F major. Yours, M. Beauchamp._

I scoff. This is impressive. This is more than I’m used to from someone I don’t intend to rob later. This could be interesting enough.

Am I truly considering this? A mysterious man, leaving me notes on café napkins, hijacking my class on Impressionism, asking existential questions in a museum gallery, a dinner reservation made by a Mozart Sonata?

Who am I kidding? I should be hiding. I should be running.

I look at the book where I have the flash drive hidden. The one with our information on it. The entire Leverage International team, me, Vi, Cee. Woodford and Moreau’s. A criminal file so huge, I’m surprised they got it saved on one little piece of computer hardware.

I should be staying inside, away from any possible enemies. I should be locked in my ivory tower, pretending like I have a life.

Or, I could go on a date with Beauchamp and risk it all.

I don’t need the music for the Sonata. This one I have memorized. I immediately start on the Adagio section; he has requested this one specifically before. I wonder why; the mournful sound does match the sky outside. It may be overcast, but something about this piece maintains a memory for him, I believe. Regardless, I have to decide what to wear tonight to this mystery date. I plan on going into this evening with caution. Ever since the Côte de Azur job, ever since New York, I need to be more cautious. Better cautious than dead.

This Beauchamp, though, he doesn’t seem threatening. He doesn’t seem the type to try to kill me after taking me out on a date.

It will definitely be a night for the black dress. It’s been years since it has seen the light of day, but by God, it will tonight.

Before the end of the night, I know I’ll have M. Beauchamp singing like a bird.

If that’s even his real name.

* * *

I head downstairs, clutching onto my cane with a death grip. I may have deemed this date not one for my gun, but I’ll be damned if I don’t bring my cane with me. I have enough surprises to deal with; I consider it my insurance policy.

Once I slip out of the door near the café that leads me up to my apartment, I see him. He sits at one of the café tables, still in that smart suit with that fedora. I have a feeling that may be his way to hide his tell. Everyone has a tell. I’ll find his.

“Bonsoir,” he begins, but I cut him off.

“Good evening, Monsieur Beauchamp.”

His charming smirk quickly shifts into a wide smile as he looks at me. His eyes stay forward. They don’t shift, they don’t threaten to shift, and already I do not trust him.

“You’ve spoken English all along, haven’t you?” he says, and suddenly I hear him for what he is: an American. Somewhere Midwestern, I believe; his accent is practically nonexistent. Makes for a perfect con man.

Why do I judge a man so quickly? An American in Paris isn’t so uncommon. I’m not far off.

“Oui,” I say, and I’m rewarded with a chuckle. “And I considered your French to be so convincing.”

“You can’t actually believe that,” he says. “I’m definitely not a native speaker.”

“And English is your native language, Monsieur Beauchamp?”

“Yes, it is, Dr. Lacey.”

“Eulalie,” I correct.

“Danny,” he finally adds. So. Danny Beauchamp. “Shall we?”

“Ah, oui,” I say, readjusting my cane in my hand as he offers me his arm. I link my arm with his, making sure to affect my limp correctly. Over the year or so, I’ve easily healed; I’ve noticed the cane and old wound makes for a good cover story, though, and managed to keep it up.

“So, Dr. Eulalie Lacey. Pianist, doctor of music. What can’t you do?” He speaks low, like everything’s a secret.

We head up Rue d’Arcole as I consider my answer. “Play football. I am horrible at any type of sport.”

He laughs. “So what is your actual profession, then?”

“Bah, you do not want to hear about me…”

“Yes, I do,” he says, giving me another one of those charming smiles. He makes me hate him a little bit as I answer.

“Associate professor of music history and piano at Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris. I have been known to moonlight for some ballet companies.”

He laughs and it echoes in the streetscape. “You’re kidding me.”

“I am not,” I say, looking away to hide my smile. It really is a high profile cover, but that’s fine. Those who know my face are either in jail or not attending the Paris Opera. At least, I hope they’re not.

“Wow. I have no idea what to say to that.”

“I quite enjoy it, and obviously, you have, too. I’ve played since I was young.” Truth.

“Do you ever play at the Palais Garnier?”

“Occasionally,” I say, and he just shakes his head, hopefully impressed.

“What about you, Monsieur Beauchamp?”

“Danny,” he automatically corrects again. “I am an art restorer and authenticator,” he says. “I’ve essentially retired to Paris, but I freelance for the museums here and across the continent.”

The hairs on the back of my neck raise up. Either he’s a con artist, or the world gifted him to me on a silver platter. I’m going to just play it like he’s both.

“Consider us lucky to find each other, then,” I say.

“Your English is very good. Did you spend some time abroad?” He asks.

“Oui. My father was American,” I indicate. “My mother, she was a Québécoise. Montréalaise, to be specific.” Not a lie, actually.

He gasps, fairly animatedly, I may add. “You’re not even a true Parisian!”

“Non, yet I still manage to have a better accent than you, hmm?”

“Touché.”

We come into Place Jean Paul II and I can never hold back my gasp. The expansive Notre-Dame de Paris still takes my breath away. Even at night, the entire cathedral is lit up almost from the inside.

“This is why you live on Île de la Cité,” he says gently.

“It does not take a genius, Danny.”

We wait for a moment, our arms intertwined; as I look up that the rose window. God, what would I do to get up there. By myself, without tourists to taint the experience.

We start off, walking down the street in silence.

With another long sigh, I turn back to him. “So, Danny Beauchamp. Art restorer, authenticator. Lover of music. What can’t you do?”

“I can’t say no to a beautiful woman, apparently,” he says after a pause.

“Good answer. Very good answer.”

“I thought so, too.”

“Are you going to tell me where we are going, or will I have to guess?”

“I’ve been wanting to come here for a while, but they don’t look very favorably on just one.”

“Ah, I see. I am your excuse, non?”

He gestures towards a black wrought iron door. La Tour d’Argent. Well played, Danny Beauchamp. Well played.

We get situated, and I know he’s about to dump an exorbitant amount of money, but he barely bats an eye. Obviously he is a prolific art restorer and authenticator.

As soon as we’re settled and I unlock my cane to retract it into itself, I have to stop myself from staring out the wide window towards Notre-Dame. I ask, “What brought you to the café below my apartment?”

“They have the best pastries in Paris.”

“I can usually smell them when I wake up in the morning. Most days I do not even need an alarm.”

He smiles, and I feel myself start to trust him more. “The pastries and the beautiful piano playing in the morning.”

“Merci. You don’t get that kind of service everywhere, hmm? What made you come back?”

“As cliché as it may sound, your rendition of _Fur Elise_ was impeccable.”

“What? Non. Not that. Perhaps you heard a Debussy first.”

“While I can’t turn down a good Debussy, no, I’m positive it was _Fur Elise_.”

“It is just so disappointing. I don’t even like that piece.”

“It kept me coming back, didn’t it?” He says, holding out his wine glass. “To Elise.”

I watch him for just a moment and feel myself smile before lifting my glass to clink against his. “To Elise, then.” After I drink, I set my glass back down and lean closer, over the red roses. “What took you so long, then?”

“So long for what?”

“To ask me to dinner. You are playing coy.”

He leans forward just enough to match me. “I had to test you first.”

“Test me? Quoi? Whatever do you mean?”

“There was one time you played that Ravel… _Gaspard de la Nuit_. One of the hardest pieces ever written.” That means he’s been listening for about seven weeks, minus my time in New York. That’s fourteen times. That’s eight notes. He was definitely casing me. No, not casing. Stop thinking like a fugitive. Not everyone is inherently bad. “That’s when I knew you were a formidable woman.”

“How did you know I was a woman?”

“The way you played _Fur Elise_.”

“Touché.” We both take long drinks from our wine, and I see his eyes drift to my cane, retracted into a smaller version of itself and resting on the side of the table.

“Go ahead and ask.”

“What happened?”

He looks so intrigued that it slips out before I can stop myself. “Two years ago, I tried to lift a few Monets off of a multi-millionaire in Saint-Tropez, but he shot me before I could switch out and steal the artwork.”

As soon as it lifts off my lips at a whisper, I regret it, but I don’t make it known to him. In fact, he starts laughing that wide American laugh. I’ve missed it, actually. Everything I’ve become as a Parisian is light and delicate. I wish I could reclaim some of what he has.

He drops his voice low once he’s done laughing. “You just told that to an art authenticator, you know.”

“As if you’re going to believe me,” I whisper. Leaning back into my chair, I bring my voice back to typical level. “I was in a motorcycle crash two years ago. I shattered my kneecap. Fortunately, I can walk.”

“That sounds a bit more believable,” he says.

“Truth is the first chapter in the book of wisdom,” I say. “An old friend once taught me that. Several times, in fact.”

Suddenly, just like that, he nearly drains his wine. He’s nervous. Or at least, a bit agitated. Why? What set him off? I look at his face. A very attractive face, yes; I try to read him but he makes it complicated.

“Why are you unsettled, Monsieur Beauchamp? Was it what I said?”

“What? No, no,” he adjusts his tie, he smooths it, and sits up straighter. “I… thought of someone I used to know.”

“Ah, yes,” I say quietly. “Who was she?”

“She? No. I mean…” he drifts, collects himself. “For a second, I remembered an old friend.”

“Old friend?” I question his usage of the same tone I took. “One you don’t speak to anymore?”

“No, he and I don’t talk anymore,” he says, his face going dark. I’m thankful for our first course’s arrival, but something is there. Something behind those blue eyes: a darkness that only people like me can see.

* * *

It is nearly eleven by the time we slip out of the restaurant and head back into the streets of Paris. It barely drizzles around us, and while Danny looks to me, wondering if we should head inside, I just look up into the drops, feeling them patter onto my face.

The food was good, the conversation, better; his understanding of art and music could surpass even me. Granted, I don’t have a real doctorate, but, considering my background, it’s more of an honorary title.

But Danny: Danny is a different kind of person. I didn’t admit it, but I live a quiet life in Paris. After the incident in Saint-Tropez, I wanted to lay low, stay out of trouble, for the most part; dating didn’t quite fit into that plan. But Danny, he fell into a different plan. Something I could consider for the long term.

Don’t think of a long con. That’s not what it is. Not everything has to fall into terms of con artistry. You don’t always have to be that way. It doesn’t have to be robberies and forgeries and seducing your way through security checkpoints and lifting key cards and bombs in theatres and…

I told myself I wouldn’t slip this easily. But I am, indeed, slipping.

I cannot be slipping now. Not after New York.

“You’re concerned about something,” he says. I’m almost startled, but recover quickly.

“What makes you say I’m concerned?”

“You squint your eyes a little and curve the left side of your mouth upwards,” he says in that casual whisper. “You have a tell.”

“Oh, do you?”

“Do I? Good luck finding it.”

I look sideways at him, and I can’t help a smirk. If he weren’t Danny Beauchamp, he’d be a formidable mark. I could always try, just for fun…

No, don’t prey on the poor man.

He smiles, then raises his eyebrows momentarily. “Well… you’re just going to have to find out.”

We slip down Pont de l’Archevêché. The love locks here have overwhelmed the side of the bridge, and I run my free hand over it, touching each one.

“It’s naïve, in a way,” I say, hearing them clang under my hand.

“What’s naïve?”

“To believe a single lock on a bridge in Paris can ensure you’ll love someone always.”

“Not a romantic?”

“L’amour est une folie temporaire. Il éclate comme un tremblement de terre, puis diminue,” I recite. I know the translation is something along the lines of ‘love is a temporary madness; it erupts like an earthquake and subsides’.

He must know the translation too because it quiets him very quickly. In fact, we slip down one of the more poorly lit streets on the island before I realize something.

I hear footsteps behind us. Several footsteps. The kind I don’t like to hear.

I knew we should have avoided this street. It’s not even a bad street, we should be safe around here, but I try to count the footsteps. Three, maybe four.

“Is there—“

“Yes,” Danny immediately says. That’s all it takes. I start piecing something together.

“How’s your acting?” I whisper.

“Decent, why—“

I start fumbling with my clutch and speaking as quickly as possible. 

“Où est mon porte-monnaie? Chérie, je semble avoir laissé tomber. Nous devons aller – Oh!” I turn around and start casing the men. Four of them, each looking angrier than the last. No guns, not from my visual scan. A knife, or two, at least.

They found me. Didn’t take them too long. Time to send a message, I guess. Danny puts a hand on my shoulder. “Excusez-nous, je vous remercie, ne vous arrive de voir ce que je laissé tomber? Non? Excusez-moi, je dois aller à –“

“Cut the Frog act, _Roxie_,” the second to the left says in a thick Irish accent. “The boss wants to talk to you.”

I swallow my fear. “Pardon? Qu’est-ce que vous parlez?”

Danny responds in kind, gesturing around the men and muttering something about letting us pass.

When we try, I lean onto my cane heavily, but it’s not enough. The first guy tosses his arm in my direction. I duck, and Danny scatters. I hope he gets out of dodge. This could get ugly.

I immediately wield my cane like a baseball bat and swing towards the knees of the man who tried to knock me down with a haymaker. I hit hard enough with the disguised metal painted as wood that it throws him to the ground. When I finally get a chance to look up, Danny lands a solid punch on the face of the man speaking.

Kirby. Looks like he stepped in where Swithey failed. And I guess they’re coming to collect.

I’m not paying attention and someone lands a punch, sending me skidding across the sidewalk. Just a few scrapes. Nothing horrible, I know, but I can still taste something metallic in my mouth and I can feel the throbbing of the ripped skin on my palms and knees from the force of the punch.

Getting up, I approach them again. I think I can send a good enough message, though, and with the right touch on my handle, the fingerprint reader unlocks the secret compartment. I start to pull apart my cane, but I only have to show several inches of the silver, sharp steel beneath before Kirby nods, then rounds up the boys with a twist of his finger. They’re off around the corner without another comment. Once it’s silent, I see Danny adjust his tie and fix his jacket, then check his knuckles.

“Didn’t expect to have to deal with a hit crew on a first date,” he says, less of his typical whisper and even more under his breath.

He doesn’t ask why. I slip my dagger back into the hilt of my cane and lean on it, rolling my shoulder. He doesn’t ask why. Why didn’t he ask why?

“C’mon,” he says, resting a gentle hand on my shoulder and pulling me in the opposite direction of my apartment.

“Where are we going—“

“Back to my place. I don’t want you around here alone tonight.”

I go along with it, we head to a better lit area, but it still doesn’t sit right with me. The convenient attack, the quick rebuttal. The retreat of our attackers, although they know how easily they could have beat us. Two to one. That’s what it was. So why did it happen so quickly, yet so easily we were left alone?

That’s the problem. You don’t have any trust. You’ve never trusted anyone. Not from the beginning, not thirty-four years since the beginning.

But whatever happens, he’s seen what you can do. He wouldn’t dare touch you now.

“You were pretty quick on your feet back there,” he starts after ages of silence. I unintentionally slow down near the Louvre, looking at the building like all it takes is a few well placed, properly wooed employees, a power surge and I could be out with the Mona Lisa.

Lord. When did you get so pathetically clichéd? You don’t even like the Mona Lisa.

As his hand nonchalantly slips from my shoulder to my arm, I can see the blood around his knuckles. The lighter it gets, the more I’m aware of the blood scrapes on my knees, the apparent cut somewhere on my face from where I landed. I keep my head down, and lean more on my cane, but this time, it’s less for appearances and more for stability.

It’s not until I understand why he asked about Palais Garnier when we stop in front of what I expect to be his building.

“You could have mentioned that you lived in a stone’s toss of the opera, Danny.”

He shrugs. “I thought you’d want to see for yourself.”

I’m not permitted to look for much longer, because Danny gestures to me to step inside.

I still don’t trust him, but he is patient as we head upstairs and then when he opens the door to what I anticipate is his apartment. I hide my surprise, or at least, I hope I do: the apartment, all in white and bright parquet floors. Like a tasteful manor house of someone royal, it looks just moderately lived in and entirely too large for one person.

“The art business must be prolific,” I say as he locks the door. He slips off his suit jacket and throws it over an arm chair in the sitting room before coming back to me. He raises his eyebrows before he speaks. A tell. I’m sure.

“You could say that.”

“So, Danny, why did you bring me all the way here?”

He slips off into a side room, and I follow him ever so cautiously; with the ceilings so high, I’m afraid I’ll be swallowed up.

The kitchen matches the rest of the apartment: white, parquet, clean, and unassuming, if you discount the massive wine rack in the corner. He grabs another handful of ice when I step inside and places it in a towel before wrapping it up, tying it, and approaching me.

“May I?”

“I don’t want to look in the mirror, do I?”

“Probably not yet.” He gently presses the wrapped ice against my head, and I take it from him, our fingers grazing like we’re in a romance novel. This is not a romance novel, I remind myself. This is real life, and I’m not meant to have anything like something in the pages of an airplane terminal paperback.

“Are you going to talk about why those men attacked us tonight, or am I going to have to ask again later?”

I set my clutch on the oversized kitchen island and sigh. “Je ne sais pas.” Oh, I know. It’s Moreau. He’s coming for me. It’s only a matter of time.

He surprises me when he touches my hand and pulls the ice away from my eye, then tilts my face gently with a hand to my chin. He simply gives me another ‘come on’ head gesture and we’re off into another room in the expansive apartment. This time, we end in his bathroom, which is bigger than my bedroom: a Jacuzzi bath, a massive shower, and enough counter space for me to lean on. While he’s cleaning up the scrape and ultimately pulling a few grains of gravel from it, he’s silent, but when he moves on past my scraped leg and then finally to my hands, he speaks up again.

“Why’d he call you Roxie?” He says. His face goes a little dark, like he’s holding on to a memory.

I sigh, knowing he’ll be relentless, and it will be easier to weave a lie than explain to him later. “I… I did some work in the past for an English gentleman. I don’t use my real name. I utilize an alias for my… unsavory business partners.”

“So. You’ve worked for the mob,” he says matter-of-factly. “Good to know on a first date.”

“It was a legitimate business transaction!” I full out lie.

“I’m sure it was,” he says, finishing cleaning up my hands. “There you go. Promise you’ll stay. Just to be safe.”

“You want me to stay in your massive apartment because you’re lonely, don’t you, Monsieur Beauchamp?”

He shrugs, half cringing, half smiling. “You got me. I set the whole thing up just to have a house guest.”

“You’re not being very nice,” I say, taking his hand from where he leaned on the counter top and washing them off. “Any feel broken?”

“No, no. I’m fine,” he says, slipping his hand out from under mine and shaking it out. Hmm. He’s uncomfortable. Why? “You can take the guest room.”

“But Danny, it’s barely midnight,” I say, following him out of the bathroom and into the foyer. “A little liquor and some conversation, I’m good for at least another four hours.”

His mouth cracks into a smile, like he’s enjoying the night, regardless of the attempted mugging.

“Meeting a pretty girl by asking her out via Mozart sonata, getting attacked by the mob… you know, Eulalie, this is not the strangest date I’ve been on.”

“Oh, non? Please. Do tell.”

He seems hesitant at first, but immediately begins rolling up his shirt sleeves and stepping backwards into the kitchen.

“I’ll get the whiskey.”


	3. Reprise: Repetition

I wake up. I’m not in my apartment. I’m in a strange bedroom—yes. Danny Beauchamp. Moreau. A lot of whiskey. It comes back to me, and I’m thankful for the pillow billowing around me to soften the blow.

This isn’t the worst thing that could happen. No. I didn’t say anything he should know, and besides, I don’t see him at all once I slip out into the living area. He did not say anything about leaving, not that I should know; we slept in separate rooms last night, him being honorable and me being at least moderately respectable.

But I eye the grand piano sitting in the corner and finally satiate my need to get close to it—it’s beautiful, it’s a little dusty, and sitting there, woefully unplayed. I sit behind it and run a few arpeggios before I decide on what to play.

I go from memory: the Round Dance of the Princesses from _The Firebird_. For a Saturday morning, it is exactly the kind of music that should be played under an overcast sky.

I close my eyes and play. It’s not quite the same on piano, but I can hear the orchestra in my head: the floating oboe, the violin playing a duet, the clarinet and horn coming in to assist with their throaty mellow tones.

Although engrossed, I suddenly feel as though someone is watching me, and I open my eyes to see Danny sitting on the couch, a carrier of coffee cups sitting on the side table. I jolt, accidentally slam my hands on the piano, and involuntarily cringe.

“Sorry. You frightened me. You were lurking.”

“I was unaware I was lurking,” he says, sipping from his coffee. His head hurt, I could tell. Perhaps he had too much whiskey last night. “Why’d you stop?”

“I can’t continue now. I would have to restart.”

“That’s a shame. Would you like some coffee?”

I shuffle to the armchair I had taken up residence in last night and greedily take the cup. Two sugars in my Starbucks, a guilty non-French pleasure of mine that there is no way he could have known. Let it go. A lot of people drink their coffee with two sugars.

“What were you playing just now? It sounded familiar.”

“Ah, yes. _La Oiseau de feu_. Stravinsky’s _Firebird_.”

“Dance of the Princesses, right,” he says like it’s the easiest thing in the world. “I’ve heard you play other parts of that ballet, too.”

“It is my absolute favorite,” I let slip. Truth. “The ballet is performing it in two weeks.”

“Will you be playing?”

“Ah, non. No need. Not unless it goes incredibly wrong and I have to cover at the last minute.”

He chuckles once. “You can’t have that happen.”

“I have yet to play for_ Firebird_. But I will. Someday.”

Without another word, he just drinks down more of his coffee. His hair sticks up a little more than normal, but I can’t help but admire the work of art he undoubtedly is.

“Did you have a rough morning, Monsieur Beauchamp?”

With a tired laugh, he shakes his head, looking down at the pile of books on the coffee table. “You could say that.”

“And just how much whiskey did you drink last night?”

“Too much,” he says quickly. “You had the same amount as me, though, and you aren’t nearly as bad.”

“Remember my father, le Americain? He was very, very Irish.”

“That explains so much,” he says, straight-faced.

“You are just jealous.”

“Oh, I’m not jealous of the way you mimed Quasimodo last night.”

“Excusez—“

“I recall a lot of rapidly spoken French last night—“

“I will deny it all.”

He peers at me. Not in a seductive way, not in a dark or casing kind of way, just in an observant and slightly awed way. He leans forward in his seat and speaks, like he does, in a hushed voice. “Come out with me again tonight.”

I’m about to object, but something in those blue eyes makes me wane. I can do tonight. I could go out again, couldn’t I?

“Sûr. Oui. Uh, what time?”

He barely seems to think, and he raises his eyebrows. A tell. “Nine. I’ll text you.”

“Are you going to tell me what you have planned?”

“Non,” he immediately says.

I’m not usually one for surprises. From him, though, it feels comfortable. It feels safe.

Something feels wrong.

* * *

I slip back on my dress to make the long journey back to my apartment, the sick feeling still settling somewhere deep in my chest. It’s fine. It’s fine; he’s being charming. There is nothing to worry about.

And yet, he did not wish me to leave. He was frightened, hoping the men were not waiting for me.

It is daylight. I have my cane, I laughed. Of course, that is more of a threat than he would realize, and I will use it if necessary. But only if necessary. We do not need more bloodshed.

Up the stairs, and I curse myself. I should have brought my gun. I should have; not for the date, mind, but for the coming home.

That’s fine. I can make due. Once I get to my floor, I lift up the top step. The false floor curves like I’m opening a cabinet and I pull out one of my handguns. It’s loaded and the safety is off before I get to my door.

Of course I have contingency plans.

I unlock the door—never a good sign, meaning they locked it behind them, to send me a message—and level my gun with whomever decides to be on the other side.

It creaks open, and I know I shouldn’t be surprised. Kirby’s boss stands in front of my Monet, his hand on his chin, peering at the painting like he has no idea its value or meaning.

“Put the gun away, my dear, or someone’s going to get hurt.”

I refuse his order, and level it at the security guard standing behind the door. Just out of his grasp, but close enough to get a kill shot.

“Get out of my apartment. Get out of my country.”

He chuckles. “What, no French accent?” His own accent, that brogue, indiscriminately from Ireland but nowhere specific, sliding through like a snake. “I thought we were doing so well.”

“I was, until you came along.”

He tsks, slipping his hands in his pockets and turning towards me. I don’t look at him, because I’ve got my eyes trained on his security dog. “So much hostility out of one beautiful woman. Why did you dodge Kirby last night?” He asks, sitting down on my piano bench and cleaning his glasses with his handkerchief. “He was so very disappointed. Plus, you have yet to return my calls.”

“I ditched that phone number a long time ago.”

“I expected as such. Who’s your friend?”

“Nobody. No one you have to touch.”

He looks to his security man, shrugging. “Doesn’t matter. I don’t care. I want you for a job.”

“I’m not doing jobs anymore. Not for you, anyway.”

“Too bad that’s not really an option. You know I know what you did.”

I don’t react. They know my tells, and I can control them. “Do you know what you taught me, Foley? There’s always a choice.”

“I never said it had to be a good choice,” he says. I glance at him. I regret it. Before I realize it, my gun’s on the floor and I’m in a headlock. I don’t dare move. My right hand is locked in place by Foley’s security.

“You never were good at protecting your peripherals, Bea. Everything was front and center with you,” Foley says, approaching us. I try to shimmy out of it, but he doesn’t move. He grips tighter. “See, Kirby here will snap your fingers, and then you’ll be out of the job, won’t you?”

I don’t answer. He’s right. Out of all of my jobs, in reality. I wouldn’t be able to lift; I wouldn’t be able to play; I wouldn’t be able to paint. He would effectively kill me.

“I know you have the drive. With our information. Moreau is going to want it back.”

“What… what do you want?” I know he has already considered the alternatives. He could tell Woodford, he could tell Moreau, but what good would I be to him then? He would use me for a few jobs first.

“_Olympia_. The Manet from d’Orsay.”

I swallow hard, exhale, and close my eyes. He knows to give me a moment. He knows that much. I walk my way through the theft before opening my eyes.

“I can do it.”

Kirby lets go of my hand, then sets my gun on my kitchen island. I don’t dare grab for it. My fate is already sealed.

“How long?” Foley asks, standing in the door frame.

I mime doing the math. “Six weeks.”

“You have three.”

The door shuts, and I slide my back down until I’m on the floor, clutching my cane. He doesn’t know about my cane. I could have used it. I should have used it.

I only need three weeks, an old alias, and a little bit of hacking. I can do this.

I find my whiskey, still sitting on the counter top from a night last week, and drink straight from the bottle.

Foley, Woodford, and Moreau know what I did. He knows I sold out the Pink Panthers to the FBI, to Interpol, to everyone. I’m the reason so many of the world’s greatest thieves are serving life in jail. I was part of the crew that stole their information from the FBI. And now I’m the reason they’re all on the run.

I’m part of the reason their friend Swithey is dead, and that Leverage International is hot on their tail.

But worst of all, I’m the reason Matthew Keller and Neal Caffrey are dead.


	4. Cambiare: Change

I’m clearly not prepared when Danny shows up at my door. He texted me, yes; I knew what to wear, and I knew what time he was coming, but I have to quickly hide the whiskey bottle before allowing him entry.

“So this is the elusive Dr. Lacey’s home,” he says, brandishing a bottle of wine before coming in. It’s practically a garret, but that’s fine. I do not need a massive house to sink all my wealth into. I have enough time and enough room. And it’s less to leave behind if I must.

“Ah, yes, welcome. Are you… are you going to tell me where we are going, Danny?”

“No, I’m not,” he says, setting the bottle down on the island. A gift, so it seems. He’s not wearing his typical suit. In fact, he has a pullover sweater on, the ones with the zipper at the neck, and he’s not wearing a tie. Wherever we are going, it is at least fairly casual. “But make sure you’re wearing comfortable shoes.”

I point down to my flats, and he seems to at least accept them before immediately getting distracted. “And this is piano that creates works of art at your fingertips,” he says, almost in reverence. As he approaches, though, I notice his eyes flit up to _Impression: Sunrise_.

“Is this why you teach it in class?”

“Oui. It is my very favorite.”

He peers at it. “It’s a very good copy. Almost as good as the original.”

“Merci.”

With a look to me, then back to the painting, he raises his eyebrows. “You painted this?”

I pick up my bag and shrug. “I dabble, as you Americans say.” Too bad he’s looking at the original Monet.

“Eulalie, that’s a little bit more than ‘dabble’.”

“I quite like les Impressionistes,” I respond, gesturing towards the door. I don’t want to shoo him out, but I definitely do not want to explain more than I have to. “But I am sure you have realized by now.”

“Impressionist art, Impressionist painters,” he muses. “You’re not taking your cane,” he adds quietly as I lock the door behind us.

I know. I did it on purpose. “It is feeling better today.”

“Even after last night?” He asks, only slightly kidding. I step hard onto the hollowed out step where my backup gun usually sits. I haven’t put it back. It’s in my bag now. I refuse to leave the house without one. I do not know where Foley or Kirby may show up, and I will not be taken by surprise next time.

But when we get out of my building, into the dark evening, Danny turns to me. “Do you trust me?”

At first, I’m not sure what to say. But under the setting sun, in the old part of the city, with the stone walls and pretty sparkling lights around us, I hear it before I think it.

“Oui. Bien sûr.” Of course? Of course. Why would I say that? I barely trust myself.

From his pocket, though, he pulls what looks to be a makeshift blindfold and suddenly I cannot see. My heart jumps. This can’t be Foley. He can’t be an inside man. Please, do not let Danny be an inside man. It would break my heart.

You’re getting too attached. Stop feeling as if you have a fleeting chance with this man. This will only end badly.

He takes my arm, and I allow it; I have really no choice at this point, but he guides me up Rue D’Arcole. We head south. I know it.

“Danny…” I say quietly, not threateningly but still inquisitively.

“Eulalie,” he says with a chuckle.

“Where are you taking—“

“It’s a surprise.”

“Why does it have to be a surprise?”

“Will you just calm down?!”

I cannot calm down. We step off a curb. He clutches tightly onto me. This has to be Rue de Chanoinesse. I hear diners. La Quasimodo. A little while longer, and we step onto paved brick. Soon, the light breeze disappears, and I’m breathing in a different taste of air: dusty, but not unpleasant; old. Very old. Our steps echo, they echo until we’re in a much smaller place.

I feel his hand in my hand, then his other rest gently on my waist, in a respectable place, not too high, not too low. He starts guiding me upwards.

“You’re going to be going up steps. A lot of steps.”

“Danny. Danny, you didn’t.”

“Didn’t what?”

“Let me guess: 387 steps?”

He whispers, just somewhere to my left: “Maybe you should count.”

“I’m already to forty-seven.”

“You’re a quick study.”

“Fifty-two. Am I moving too quickly for you?”

“We could go faster,” he suggests.

“Unfortunately, you forget I am blindfolded.”

“Hasn’t seemed to stop you from counting steps or figuring out where we’re going.”

“It adds to the mystery, now doesn’t it, Monsieur Beauchamp?”

“Of course it does, Dr. Lacey. Why do it if you can’t make a production out of it?”

For the next hundred steps, we’re quiet, save for the sound of the wind and the sound of Paris streets somewhere down below. I try to figure out where we are: I’m nearly positive, but to be completely honest, I have yet to come here, so I cannot be sure. We don’t stop when I feel the breeze, we just keep going until I feel like we burst out of a tomb and we are on semi-flat ground again. I hear light piano music coming out of… somewhere. Wherever we are, the wind nearly knocks me off my feet.

“Am I allowed to get this God-forsaken blindfold off yet?”

“Not… not yet,” he says, pulling me forward a few more steps until I assume I am right where he wants me. I feel his hands at the knot of the blindfold and he pulls it off, and my eyes have to barely readjust to what I see.

The sun has almost completely set, and the sky has become shades of oil paints I can only dream to mix. I did not think colors like this actually existed, but they do. I peer out over the city, and the buildings look like well-matched children’s toys. The entire skyline is within my view; when I realize where we are, I step back from the gated edge, suddenly very dizzy.

“Eulalie, are you—“ He immediately grasps onto me, and I steady myself against him. After a moment trying to regain my senses, I realize I’ve leaned completely into him and he’s stayed, waiting.

“It’s just a little… a little high. I’m fine now,” I say, exhaling loudly and trying again to look out over the skyline. Paris really is the City of Lights: each swipe, swatch of light has a hundred colors, pinpricks of yellow and white and gold and beige behind it.

“I guess I didn’t give you much time to prepare yourself,” he chuckles, gesturing off to the side. Somehow he’s managed to get a picnic dinner and tiny set of table and chairs to the top of the south tower of Notre Dame. He pulls my chair out for me to sit and pours some wine.

“And just how did you manage…?”

“I know a guy,” he says nonchalantly, serving up our dinner with a flourish. I’m still distracted by the wine and the view and the music, playing from a little speaker on the ground.

But we eat and we drink and we drink more, and the night sky falls into more distinct darkness and the candle on the table flickers with low light. Soon, we move to the edge of the tower, where the area is cordoned off with large chunks of wire. Regardless, we can see through just fine.

But the more I drink, the quieter I become as we peer out into the city. Eventually, the music shifts to another piece, a piano piece that makes me chuckle.

“You had to slip _La Cathedrale Engloutie_ on here, did you not?”

“I found it very effective,” he says, leaning onto the stone next to me. “You’re allowed to disagree, but it reminds me of Notre Dame.”

“The piece is about the myth of a cathedral on the coast of Ys,” I say, seeing the ocean of lights ebbing and flowing as people move from one place to the next below. “Supposedly, you could hear the services across the sea. The church bells, making the entire cathedral emerge from the water; the slow modulation to ‘emerge from the fog’ until it grows, and the full chords—the church organ, as it were—plays what could be a hymn, or what could be the music echoing through the water and the church itself. Until… until it just gradually fades away into nothingness, into the water, into the darkness.”

I shiver, I do not know whether it is the thought of the piece, or whether it is the breeze or him; with that, he approaches me, covering my hand with his on the stone wall. I lean back into him, and he takes the cue; he envelopes me in his warmth as we stare out into the city.

“You seem to have a slight fixation on slipping into nothingness,” he says quietly in my ear.

“What do you mean?” I know what he means. I know he’s referring to d’Orsay.

“You don’t want to fade away.”

“No,” I say, almost immediately. “I think what I told you at the museum was ‘I intend on making sure everyone knows my name.’”

“When did you know it was me?”

“When you followed me from my classroom,” I say, giving him a smirk. It sounds even worse now when I say it out loud. He could be playing me from the beginning. At least the mesh fences are here. I cannot possibly be thrown off the side. Not that he would. He spent all this time and effort getting me here…

“Regardless,” I decide to say, “I do not wish to become someone not remembered. I want to make my mark on the world.”

“I think you already are, Eulalie.”

I’ve been doing a lot of saying without thinking tonight, but I do it once more as I turn in his arms to face him: “I have yet to be honest with you,” I say. “Eulalie is not actually my first name.”

“It’s not?” He seems to tease.

“For now, you may call me Bea.” As soon as it slips out, I regret it. That’s not a nickname I’ve permitted myself to share. That’s too close to my real name. Not an alias. The name I was born with.

“Bea,” he says, his hands still on the stone, closing me in. Not for long, though: one hand slips to my waist, the other, under my hair when he pulls me to him, his lips on my lips, as Debussy preludes play in the background. The wind blows in from the north east, throwing my hair about and pushing us against the tower wall, but I clutch to him. He kisses me again, and I hold tightly as not to fall.

But I know it’s too late. It’s too late not to fall.

* * *

None of my planning works. I try to plan a con, I try to plan something, but it keeps falling apart.

I’ve taken to painting again. It seems to be the only thing that works when I’m planning. But the problem, so it seems, may not be the con.

I am distracted. I am unable to focus, and I believe it to be someone else’s fault.

I continue to paint, but the colors seem wrong. It’s not my usual style. I typically paint in the Impressionist style, and this, this falls into the more realist category. Foley knows that. Foley knows this is not my typical fare. That’s what proves so difficult. The piece is famous, yes; it will be scrutinized and carefully looked at for the rest of its life. I have to paint it carefully. No mistakes.

Though I know this isn’t where the mistakes may be. The painting I can always pull off. It’s the con—the swap itself—that seems to prove difficult anymore.

Security measures are getting more complicated. I can’t just peel it off the wall and run. Besides, the work of art itself is… well, as large as the canvas in front of me.

I wonder if I can convince someone to be a fall guy for me during the theft. Is there anyone here I can screw over? Is there anyone I can convince to steal something in the same museum in the same gallery at the same time?

I’m going to need access. I’m going to have to steal a keycard. So schedule a time, get a guy to go inside, use him as a patsy on the cameras. That way I can get inside and he can do the swap.

I’ll go in with the key card, get behind the scenes and swap out the painting?

Mixing the paint, I know it’s too dark, so I try to lighten it up. The servant’s skin nearly blends into the background, so I have to be very careful to make sure it matches perfectly.

I don’t want to use that con. I don’t like it. Too many moving parts, and not enough time to plan. I need something simpler and much quicker. The less planning, the better.

I need floor plans. I need information on their lower levels. Putting my paintbrush in my mouth, I saunter over to my bookshelf. This one, though, is special: again, simple, yet effective. I look through the options, find one of my many books on Napoleon, and open it. The large book is all but cut out, and I retrieve the blueprints I have of the d’Orsay. They’re about a year old, so I expect them to be new enough for the smash and grab I’m about to do. Perhaps it is a bit more elegant than the smash and grab; the con I’m considering is fairly sophisticated. I need to do a little research, find out who is on vacation—

First, I have to check the status of the painting. I could not be so lucky, but it is definitely worth a shot to find out. I bring up the web and look through recent news.

There it is. That’s why Foley is calling me to steal it now. The painting is about to leave the country for an 18-month stint around the world, and within two and a half weeks, it will be gone. I can do it in this timeline. It will be pulled from viewing in a week and a half, so I’ll have seven days to pull this off.

I quickly wrack my brain until I find it.

The Pony Express. Perfect con for the job.

I need to get working on this painting then—it’s a massive piece in such short notice. You can do this. Your life depends on it. Literally. Your life, your livelihood, your good name. A good name, at least.

First stop is my record player: I take it forward a movement and to allow for Holst’s arrangement of the Roman water god.

Second stop is readjusting my handgun, resting in the small of my back in the waistband of my knit shorts. I’m fine. I am truly fine. There is, though, an adjustment period, and I’m slipping through the stages quickly. Right now, I’m in anger, and felt it was most important to have the gun on hand in case I’m ambushed in my home. Again.

Besides, my stereotypical white flowy button down covers it up quite nicely. I’ve learned not to expect visitors except for hostiles—

Knocking on the door. I jump, nearly causing paint to fly across the canvas. I cannot afford to mess this up. My supplies are limited, both canvas and paint, and I cannot let this go to waste now. Everything I’ve built would go to hell.

Slipping my paintbrush behind my ear, I get up and head towards the door. Sunday afternoon. Who would even consider coming at this time? Foley wouldn’t. He would still be at mass or milling around with his people after mass. It’s Sunday. He may be a gang leader, but he would never come after me on Sunday.

One hand on the door handle, the other on my gun, I let the door creak open, preparing my French accent just in case.

“Danny! Hello… I—I was not expecting you. I would have cleaned up the room.”

I do not slip my hand off of my gun. Instead, I let him inside, stepping backwards until I hit my record player. As I slide the stylus off the record, I pull my gun from behind my back and shove it into the secret drawer I have on the side of the player.

“_The Planets?_ Really?” He says, casually stepping inside. His judgment leaves quickly when he sees the piece I’m working on—the over 4 feet by 6 feet painting, sitting on not one but two easels—and his face drops. I try to read him, but he just stares, almost slackjawed, and what I’m working on.

“Wow.”

I dry off my hands and shrug. “Ouais. I was trying to solve a problem, so I started a project.”

“Must be a pretty big problem.”

“I would say,” I add, scoffing under my breath. “Did you have a reason for coming by? Or did you just want to share my company?”

“Oh, I wanted to ask you something. I know you’re interested in art—“

“That is understating it, isn’t it, Danny?”

He takes another long look at my unfinished project. “You could say that. I’ve got a job coming up—a restoration job—and was wondering if you would like to join me.”

“J-join you? Are you going to sneak me in the back door of one of the French museums that employ you?”

“D’Orsay, actually. They called me to see if I could look over a few of their pieces headed overseas.”

I try not to visibly perk up. I could run my con during the time we’re there. I could use him as a patsy, as a cover story… but no. I cannot. I’m not that person anymore, and if we were caught, he would be implicated as well, and I will not stand for that. Keller may have, and Foley may, but I am not that person to allow collateral damage.

“I would love to,” is what I muster, and he nods happily.

“I don’t have a date yet, but it’ll be in the next week or so.”

“Perfect,” I say. I may not use him as a patsy, but he’s a perfect way to get information. I slide past him to my kitchen and pull wine glasses out of my cabinet. “A white or a red?”

“It’s a Sunday afternoon,” he muses. “Why not a white?”

I start considering questions I can ask him about the museum. With some wine and the right wordings, he’ll give me everything I need.

I try not to feel guilty, because this is about self-preservation. This is about life or prison.

“So what is the typical process of authenticating a painting?”


	5. Nocturne: Of the Night

Although I don’t know what she’s up to, I can’t wait any longer. This kind of hacking work is beyond my paygrade, and I’ve got to call in the cavalry. Well, text in the cavalry.

+06 38 37 66 73

while i nodded, NEarly napping, sUddenly there came a tapping,

as oF somE one gentLy rapping, rapping at my Chamber dOor.

“’tis some Visitor,” i muttEred, “tapping at my chambeR door—

only this and nothing more.”

It takes about three seconds for the text to come back.

Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

I’ve got fifteen minutes. I head over to Pont Neuf now. It’s not far, and I know she’s been in Paris. Hell, she followed me here. And that what worries me—if she’s here, then I know Moreau’s not far behind. But the rain comes down, so I grab my cane and head out into the weather. My knee throbs, but that’s fine. It’s fine. I’m moving.

The ten-minute walk takes me to the middle of the bridge. She’s already there. She’s a redhead this time. We stare out at the bridge—even now, even how long I’ve been here, the Seine and the beautiful buildings lining it take my breath away.

“Vi.”

“Eulalie.”

“Oh, you know my name this time around?”

“I know everything,” she says, adjusting her glasses. I know they’re fake, but they’re a good mask for the rest of her face.

“How have you been?” I ask. It’s been only about a month since New York. I know what I’ve been doing—the only thing I’m good at. Hiding. Vi, though, had her sights set on something higher once we left that con: she wanted to track down Moreau once and for all. She wanted to eliminate him from the planet. She still might.

“Decent. Tracking him. He’s here, you know.”

I look over the Seine. It loses its luster.

“I know.”

“Bea—“

“He found me. Well, Foley has found me. I don’t know how much Woodford or Moreau know.”

She draws a heavy breath. “They’re closing in just as quickly as we are.”

“Have you heard from Cee?”

I shake my head. Not after the last job. Not after New York. The last I heard, she was traveling cross country in the States, trying to clear her head and trying to clear her name with Eliot Spencer.

“I’m keeping her on standby,” Vi confesses. “She knows about all this. I’ve told her how close I am.”

“Good. We may need her, especially if we start getting closer. We may need all of them.”

“Hardison is just an encrypted text away.” She peers around, then clears her throat. Our time here is ending, and it is ending quickly. “I’ll get that cover for you.”

“Do you know what I need?”

“Oh, honey. I always know what you need.”

I smirk, but sass her anyway: “You frighten me, Vi. You and your powers frighten me.”

“Don’t bite the shark that feeds you,” she snaps, sidling off the bridge.

All I know is, in the midst of Moreau and Woodford, in the midst of Foley and Kirby extorting me for works of art, is that Vi—despite the accident, despite what she’s been through—is a tour de force.

* * *

At about two p.m. the following Friday, when I am completing some research on the museum based on the information Danny so willingly gave up the week before, I receive a phone call. Not something about the con or Danny or Foley—no. From the Paris Ballet. The manager, calling in a panic, talking about how suddenly both the celesta and xylophone players have taken ill, and how their replacements are unable to be contacted, and how they only have several hours before the ballet begins and I am the only one in the vicinity with any knowledge on the music, and I could play both parts—they would bring out the grand piano for me—and although Danny and I were supposed to attend, how could I say no?

I call him, and it takes a very long time for him to reach the phone, but he does.

“Danny! Danny, I have some good news and some bad news.”

“Alright… I’ll take the bad news first, then.”

“I will be unable to come with you to the ballet tonight.”

“You’re going to miss _Firebird_? What came up? What’s the good news?”

“Remember how I said something would have to go wrong in order for me to play for _Firebird_? Those things went wrong.”

His mood immediately changes, and it lifts my heart. He’s legitimately excited for me. “What? You’re playing? What happened?”

“Celesta, xylophonists, they’re very fleeting… I guess I am the only one who can come in on time.”

“Do you know the parts, Bea?”

“I… will learn them. Very quickly. I’m sorry about not being able to go with you. If you decide not to come, I understand.”

He sighs heavily, and I am positive I can hear the smirk in his voice. “Break a leg tonight.”

“Merci, Danny.”

I have a lot of work to do in a short period of time. I get over to la Palais for rehearsal, I sight read my parts; before long, I head back to my apartment to get ready for the evening.

For the first time in a long time, I’m looking forward to an evening that does not involve an alias or a stolen piece of art. This is _Firebird_, and I get to play.

After a quick dinner, I curl my hair, make sure I have my special red lipstick—it hasn’t come out since a play a few years ago, before New York, before Saint-Tropez, not since I pulled that con in Seville as Carmen Halévy—and find the dress. The Dress, as I’ve aptly named it. Black, floor length, A-line. The top comes down to a deep V, held up by thicker straps, with off the shoulder sleeves for added flair. It opens to the small of my back. Open enough to breathe, no long sleeves to fumble with.

Essentially, it’s perfect.

Before I know it, though, I’m in front of my piano, prepared for the curtain. I can do this. I know I can. My place is here in the pit, and although I cannot see the ballet, I follow along exactly with the music.

By the time we get to the Lullaby and the finale, I have to try to contain the tears threatening to roll down my face. Keep your composure. It’s just a ballet. It’s just your favorite ballet.

The music swells. I’m tacet to the end, but it doesn’t stop me from watching the conductor and his sweeping arcs through the air has the finale broadens. The victorious music sounds through the hall, through the Palais, until all I hear is the horns and strings and my heartbeat.

He lowers his hands, the strings get quiet, and suddenly we have the march section. He takes it fast, speeding up, adding to the gradual decelerando to the majestic section of the finale. The timpani booms and I hold my breath. Stealing paintings is great. This? This is fantastic. This is an art: sweeping melodies and brush strokes with bowstrings.

The orchestra barely finishes its subito pianissimo crescendo to fortississimo before the crowd explodes into applause.

It’s more intoxicating than a heist.

* * *

While it’s long after everyone should have left, I shouldn’t go out the main entrance. Even after a performance like that, though, I deserve to go down the grand staircase, do I not?

I slip down to the main floor and at first, I don’t recognize him without his fedora, but he stops admiring the architecture of the foyer for a moment to give me a smirk. One hand, slid in his pocket; the other, clutching a single red rose.

I should have known he would be here. I should not be so surprised.

“An inspiring performance,” he begins as he saunters to me. His eyes trace down to my feet and back. “Truly. And to think you were covering for someone.”

I close the distance between us with a few steps. This is a con. A con. A confidence trick. Don’t… don’t forget that. You’re using him for information about the d’Orsay.

“It is typically what I do best,” I whisper, taking the rose from his waiting fingertips. With a breath, I kiss him on his cheek. I go to move away, but he pulls me back to him, his hand suddenly bracing me on the small of my back, his palm against skin. It’s a slow, gentle kiss; I feel the tension from the night dissipate in his warmth.

Eventually, we draw away from each other. Instead of taking his arm like I’m so used to doing, I take his hand in mine and head out of the Palais. It feels too comfortable, too real. I’m not sure who is conning who at this point, and quite frankly, I cannot bring myself to be concerned.

“You did not have to come, you know,” I say, crossing to the center of the Place.

“Of course I did. Besides, I haven’t been to the ballet in years.”

“I wish I could say you strike me as a man who isn’t a fan of ballet, but I would be lying.”

We cross again, dodging traffic, and one more intersection until we’re simply back to his apartment. I’m happy, too; I was not going to make it back to my place tonight all in one piece, whether it was physically or emotionally.

“I’m a man of good taste,” he says, holding the door open for me. I step into his quiet, his dark apartment. Mostly dark—the lights of the Place still stream through his living room windows.

I go to them, kicking off my heels and letting my dress drag on the floor. The corner where his grand piano sits is the best, in my opinion, because from there, I can see the entirety of the Palais.

I rest my red rose on the grand but don’t quite let it go, watching the traffic slip in and out of the Place. It’s quiet up here. I could live like this forever. I really could, but I know it’s never going to happen. I will always keep running. I will always keep running, as long as Moreau and Woodford are alive.

He slips a glass of white wine in my hand and I take a long drink from it, peering out the window until I hear him draw an audible breath.

“Bea, don’t—don’t move. Just for a second.”

“Should I be concerned?” I say, heeding his warnings. From where I had frozen, I see out of the corner of my eye Danny shed his jacket, push up his sleeves, and heave a large sketchbook into the living room. I do as he says, not moving, listening to the scratch of his charcoal against the paper, the catch of his breath. I feel his eyes on me, on every part of me, and I refuse to move to maintain whatever he is doing.

After a long time, after the continuing ticking of the clock, after several rounds of watching people come and go in the Place, I find my voice.

“May I at least take a drink of my wine?” I ask quietly, as not to break his concentration.

“Oh, yeah. Of course. Please,” he says, finally, after however long it was, he holds the sketchbook at arms’ length before putting it back into his workroom.

“Do I not get to see the work of art?” I ask when he returns, brushing off his hands and loosening his tie.

“Not yet. I just wanted a preliminary sketch. I can paint the rest from memory,” he says, filling my glass back up. Even the pavement reflects the light, and people mill about, taking in the City of Lights at night. He rests behind me, his hand on my arm, and I finally take my hand off the rose sitting on the piano.

“The whole sketching bit, that’s very romantic,” I whisper over my shoulder. “But I’m sure you knew that.”

He moves his hand from my arm to the curve of my waist, and his eyes flicker from my lips and back to my eyes again. I barely have to breathe before his lips are on mine. He tastes like chardonnay, he smells like charcoal and expensive cologne. Against everything I’ve been taught, I close my eyes and lull my head to the side, letting his lips work from my mouth down to my neck and shoulder. The warmth of his breath causes my skin to flush with heat; his grip on my waist only tightens.

I pull my hair from the back of my neck, and he takes it as his cue to unhook the trio of buttons on the strap holding up the top of my dress. With that release, I shut my eyes against his gentle fingers pushing the straps from my shoulders. They threaten to slide down, but I catch the bodice before it drops in front of the window.

Like he’s read my mind—although I consider giving Place de l’Opera a free show—he leans around me and the piano, reaches for the curtain pull, and we are in a private space again. Today I don’t have to think about Moreau, I don’t have to think about the job, I just have to think about him.

And I don’t think: I discard his tie then start unbuttoning his shirt with only minor difficulty, as he tries to distract me with his lips against my lips. It’s a good distraction, yes; it doesn’t take long until I leave him in just his undershirt and pants.

“Now you look like a true starving artist,” I whisper, giggling as he holds my hips and trails his lips down my neck and chin across my collarbone, bending me against the piano.

“Consider what you’ve said. Do I really look like a starving artist to you?”

“It’s about aesthetic, Danny, of course,” I say, extending my arms the span of the piano and leaning onto it. “I never said you had to actually live it.”

“Good, because I don’t intend to,” he finishes, his hands curling around to the small of my back once more. As he kisses me, I feel his fingertips sliding the invisible zipper down at the bottom of the open back until it is fully opened. His hands slide under the satin, across my hips, my skin, until I gasp.

In retaliation, I slide off his undershirt and toss it away. I don’t watch where it lands. I watch him, I watch him touch every part of me until he can reach what was still holding my dress up. A precarious off the shoulder sleeve is all that stands in his way, so I slide my arms off the piano and allow him to push them off my arms until the entire dress drops.

It’s easy to lead him into his bedroom, to the four poster bed that will soon contain just me and my black lace lingerie, but I make sure to grab the nearly full bottle of wine before I leave the living room.

“I’m under the impression that you should play backup for the Paris Ballet more often,” he says, lighting a group of candles first on his chest of drawers, then his window seat, then his desk until we can only see in a hazy of fiery light.

“Why? Did I ignite your muse?” I mock. He does not feel threatened, though. I practically lead him with my mouth as he struggles to follow and still kiss me. Without missing a beat, he grasps the wine bottle as I fall back onto the bed. He sets the bottle down on the side table, then pulls off his belt. I lean up my elbows, waiting for him to return, and he does; he pushes bodily between my legs and leans over me. I don’t have time to respond; he kisses me hard, so breathlessly, I draw my uninjured knee up to stabilize myself. He uses it to his advantage, clutching my thigh, sinking his fingers into the skin.

I gasp when his fingers trace down the inside of my thigh and he rubs his palm hard against me, with the layer of weak lace between us. I take in a sharp breath, sharper than I intend, and he does it once more, making me moan instead. He seems to like this, and I do too; without another word he pulls my underwear off, and I’m naked underneath him. His eyes trace over my body over my bare chest, moving under my breath.

He steps backward, off the bed, unbuttoning his pants, and while he does, I stand up and find the bottle of wine before pulling out the pins holding most of my hair up. I shake out my hair, then take a long drink straight from the bottle.

“I can see the bit of American in you right about now,” he says, his voice low. Even in the candlelight, his eyes are wanting. I set down the bottle on the bedside table ever so delicately and lay back down on the bed.

Once he’s naked himself, he’s on top of me; I feel his nails scratching against my rib cage, forcing his way upward until his hand cups my breast. His fingers are cold, but I’m not. The alcohol barely touches me, but it’s in my bloodstream, bringing enough heat to my skin to make him feel like ice.

He watches me, wants to see my reactions to his tongue on me, his mouth around my nipple, hot and wet, until I arch enough into him to slip his hands under my back. He holds me, arched, against him, and I can feel him hard against me. He switches, not relenting, until I’m moaning, aching, wanting him inside me.

“Why is _Firebird_ your favorite?” He says, moving his hands from under me so I could relax. He reaches with one hand for the wine bottle, but with the other, he twists my nipple under his thumb and forefinger. I writhe, trying not to gasp too much as he speaks.

“The musical themes, the—the costumes, the story,” I attempt, watching him drink from the wine bottle.

“What makes the story so compelling?” He says.

“The heroic journey, the love story, the villain dying because he’s too dense to know what he’s done.” He uses my body as a hand hold, rubbing himself against me.

After a moment, he looks down at me, and goes to pour wine into my mouth. Most of it I catch, but rivulets course down my chin and my neck, and he catches them with his tongue. I nearly gasp just watching him.

Shifting his weight downward just enough, he kisses my stomach, my breasts again. I just watch as he tips the bottle and lets the wine drip down between my breasts, leaving a wet line down to my belly button. He licks it up, kissing me hard once he reaches my mouth.

I don’t know what else to say, besides the fact that I’ve never experienced this much foreplay. It’s making me quake under him.

“Bea, you’re shaking.”

“I am,” I say hazily. “No one’s ever done this to me before.”

“What, actually treated you like the goddess you are?”

“Stop flattering me,” I whisper breathily. “And no. Not like this.”

“What do you mean, ‘like this?’” He asks, still confused, holding tightly onto my hip. He peers at me, then shifts his hand, he slips it between my legs and for a moment I’m undone and he’s barely touching me.

He does stop, he stops for a moment, grasping the bottle tightly in his hand still. His expression shifts in recognition. He sets the wine bottle back down before turning to me. He leans over me, grabbing one of the throw pillows and slipping it under my hips. I know exactly what he’s doing. He takes my thighs in his hands, parting them, spreading them. I’m weak in his grip. He slips between them, his face between my legs, then weaves his arms around my thighs, resting his hands on my stomach. I look down across my own body to watch him, and he looks up at me as he runs his tongue over me. He starts gently, gauging me, probably. Stop it, this con paused about an hour ago. You’re on standby. Jesus. Jesus.

He’s not gentle and I grab for the sheets, biting my lip for fear of being too loud. He bears down on me, forcing me in place, although I want to move, God, I want to move. I writhe in his grip but he is relentless, and I can feel every place his tongue has touched from my lips to my toes.

And just when I think he can’t make it any better, he moves just enough to the side to push a finger inside me. I hear myself gasp and it feels like I’m not in my body; the way he shifts against me, moves with me—I squeeze my eyes shut and he doubles his efforts; I reach down, entwining my fingers in his hair. I draw in a short breath when I feel him draw out from me, but he only makes it worth my while by returning with another.

Two fingers shift in and out in a fast rhythm, one my mind can’t keep up with. I can’t comprehend it. I can’t even begin to comprehend it.

Before I know it, he takes his mouth off of me, letting his finger do the work now. He licks his lips, taking away my taste, I expect. But I just want more. I want him to do more, I want him to fuck me more.

So I say it. I ask for it.

“Harder. Please,” I add, gasping for breath already.

I feel him push a third finger into me. He is relentless. All I can hear is my own breath, and it keeps catching until I let out little moans. But the moans stop being little and he realizes it. He realizes it, and moves faster. I start to get dizzy, and I feel a warmth growing in my stomach. It almost tickles, it feels like I’m going to explode; I don’t know what to do besides take a larger gulp of air.

I don’t have to time to say a word; I buck against him and he holds me in place. He pushes me back down onto the bed with a hand across my stomach, and pushes his mouth back into me, catching on the crest of the wave. That’s all he has to do, and the anticipation, the growing explosion, finally lets go. I see stars behind my eyes. I feel my entire body undulate under him, and he laughs. I can feel him laugh against the inside of my thighs.

I stare up at the ceiling until it subsides, and he doesn’t move until I finally let out a breath. When he moves, he shifts until he’s straddling me again, then reaches for a condom on the table. As he does, I reach for the bottle, filling up my mouth once more. Once he’s ready, I am too, and I go to set the wine down but he takes it swiftly, taking another long drink from the bottle.

Sliding my hands into my hair, he repositions me on his makeshift prop pillow, parts my thighs once more and pushes himself into me. I arch into him unintentionally, and he leans over me, encasing me in him, as he thrusts, slowly, deliberately. Riding off my previous pleasure is easy. I’m halfway there already, and the touch of his body against mine just makes me shudder.

His hands meet mine and he pushes them above my head, locking us into position, as he kisses me. The candlelight gives him a gentle halo, fading light in the dark room, gasps and moans as our music. I curl my thighs around him, locking my ankles across his back, and he uses it as an excuse to grasp tighter to my hands and thrust deeper, faster. The most I can muster now is a gasping breath against his lips, a moan while he runs his lips against my neck as I throw my head back against the pillow.

I shift my thighs, I give him more room to move, and he nearly pulls out of me. I don’t want him to leave, and he doesn’t: he adopts a slower tempo, but with more to gain—each time he moves, he thrusts deeper and deeper into me, pushing until I can’t even make a sound. I don’t speak, I don’t say a word, for fear of losing my accent, for telling him who I really am. At this point, it’s inevitable. Don’t think like that. Don’t. Just—just let go.

And I do. He does, too, just before I do, and my hands fly to his shoulders, and I sink my fingernails into his skin. We grasp to each other, riding wave after wave until it finally subsides.

He kisses me, my face, my shoulders, and suddenly I realize the draw of Danny Beauchamp.

He makes me feel like a work of art.


	6. Improvvisato: Improvised

The next week goes by before I can blink: between Danny, between school, between planning a con and aging a painting, suddenly, it’s time for me to steal the Manet.

It has been years since I’ve stolen something this big. It’s been at least two years since I was shot and moved to Paris. It’s been one month since New York. The sun, though, it still rises, and it casts brilliant beams of light through the clouds this morning. It looks like an Impressionist painting.

I’m reminded why I do what I do.

I can pull this off. I can do this. I check my phone—I have two missed calls and a voicemail from Danny, but it’s too late. I cannot look back now.

The painting—my forgery, painted with my special supplies—has been gently rolled and sent to the museum. It is sitting in a tube, addressed to Pierre Von Hemmelschmidt, assistant to the financier, who is on vacation until October 30. It will sit in the mailroom in the basement until he gets back.

This is not the most complicated con I’ve ran. I did this in 2008 in Detroit. It worked then. They still don’t know Whistler’s _Night in Black and Gold_ is a forgery. The sweeping, dark colors, the flecks of gold—that painting was harder than Olympia, in my opinion.

As I head into d’Orsay, I lean heavily on my cane, affecting a slower pace. My head is sweating. I do have two wigs on. It’s just part of the con.

A phone rings. I realize it’s mine. Who would be calling me now? Less than five people have this number, yet I refuse to believe it’s Danny. It can’t be him. Not right now.

I limp my way to the metal detector, holding up the line much to the other visitors’ chagrin. I turn over my items, my bag; I hesitate, and the security guards watch as I look to my cane and back again. I look to the young security guard with wide eyes, and we make brief eye contact.

He gestures for me to put my cane in the bin, to go through the metal detector, but they won’t find anything. They won’t see the blade because of the metal encasing it.

And he does what I expect: reaches to the other side of the detector, giving me a hand as I limp through.

“Merci. Merci,” I whisper, clutching onto him while he gets me my back and my cane. I lift his security badge as I hobble off. I missed making lifts like this. For the longest time, right when I came to Paris, I used to work the Tuileries, picking pockets until I could get enough money to get my garret and fence a few of my paintings.

I slowly make my way through the gallery, looking at the art but not seeing it. My first mission is to make it to the WC in the rear. Here, the cameras point towards the art, not towards the entrance. Not my favorite location, but it’s the best I have.

The slower I go, the more I feel my adrenaline kick in, but the first phase is done: security badge. The next part is changing who I am.

I slip into the last stall of the bathroom, strip off the long cardigan I’m wearing, take off the first layer of pants—I’m still sweating, and I hate it, but this is the Pony Express Variant I’m running alongside a Quick Change—then pull off the light auburn wig. Swap of the shoes, adjust of my new wig—my blonde wig—then I shove the rest in my purse and listen.

The last person leaves, so I step up onto the toilet, lift up the ceiling tile and stow the purse. All I need is my phone, my headphones, and my cane, folded up and stowed on the inside of my pant leg.

A swatch of red lipstick, a placement of glasses, nude colored leather gloves, and the security lanyard around my neck and suddenly I have access.

Thank you, Vi.

I slip my headphone earbud through my shirt, place my phone in my pocket and start the piece I’ve chosen in which to make it through the security checkpoint.

First, check my watch: 11:07. First guard change happening in three minutes. This version of _Lacrimosa_ is two minutes and 50 seconds. I need to be behind that door before this piece ends.

The elegant strings start and I begin.

I mill about the gallery, looking at the statues nearest the side staircase. _Lacrimosa dies illa qua resurget ex favilla judicandus homo reus:_ mournful is the day on which from ashes shall arise the guilty man to be judged.

The guards talk briefly to each other; I slide behind them, moving with purpose, and before the choir asks for eternal rest, I’m behind the door, letting it slide close quietly.

11:09.

Phase two. The swap. _Aquarium_ by Camille Saint-Saëns. Two minutes, five seconds.

I follow the stairs down and to the bowels of la Gare d’Orsay. It is cordoned off into offices, and I quickly find from my memorization of the blueprints the mailroom.

It’s a Saturday. It’s empty. It’s not even locked. Why would it be?

Finding the tube is not hard at all: it’s the only one of its shape and size sticking out the oversized bin. I snag it and head back out. One minute to the door as the low strings kick in, alerting me to the time I have left.

The art storage room isn’t far—back the way I came. I make it there before the last chord. Everything is going swimmingly so far. Something has to give. There is going to be a kink, a hitch, there has to be.

But the art storage room—activated by my stolen key card—is empty too.

Last piece: _In the Hall of the Mountain King_. Two minutes, twenty-five seconds.

It’s so easy to find: it sits against the wall, unencumbered. This close, without alarms or people to tell me to step back, it’s beautiful. It’s so sad it has to go to Foley, but I would like to live to see another day in Paris. I’d rather he not sell me out to Moreau. Or, at least, he can give me enough time to come up with a way to stop him. This is a stop gap.

Opening the roll, I dump my forgery onto the work station. Sliding my cane from my hiding spot, I unlock it and slide the dagger from the hiding place.

I pull it back from the wall and start pulling the back off the frame with my dagger. If I was just stealing it, I could slip it out of the end, but I’m replacing it with a forgery—a bit more complicated. It takes me seconds to open up the entire top of the frame. The music speeds up and gets higher as I pull the painting out—gently, gently—and once it’s free, I can roll it up and slip it into the tube.

With delicate hands, I unroll the forgery and start sliding it in, trying not to giggle to the music.

It’s too easy, as the music builds, to reattach the back of the frame to the frame itself, then slip my dagger away and hide my cane. Before the music even finishes, I lean it back against the wall and grab the roll, reseal it, and write in the marker sitting on the table “Retour à l'envoyeur”.

The door opens. The door creaks open as the music crescendos to a thundering, terrifying peak. One man speaks to another quickly in French—

“—I was saying, the work needed on this piece is not extensive, but some restoration is req—oh. Hello. And you are?”

The museum employee isn’t the one I stare at. It’s the person he’s speaking to. It’s the suit, it’s the pocket square. It’s the perfectly styled hair, just slightly ruffled, the cobalt turquoise eyes.

Danny Beauchamp stands next to the museum employee, wearing a different suit and a pair of black, thick glasses. He gives me a warm smile, so I return one.

He cannot break my cover. He can’t.

“Oh, My name is Emma Bricusse,” I say, remembering the back hack Vi slipped into their employee systems. I show the employee the fake id she delivered to me this morning via courier. “Acquisitions. I’m preparing these pieces for travel.”

“On a Saturday?” He laughs. He’s in good spirits. That bodes well.

“Oui. No time to do it before the start of the week, sir.”

He harrumphs, then gestures to Danny. “This is our art restoration specialist, George DeVore.”

George DeVore? I don’t visibly react either, but I shake his hand. His eyes flick down to the gloves I’m wearing, then back to my face again.

“Nice to meet you. I need to run to the mailroom, then to my break. I will give you both privacy.”

The employee begins looking at the binder on the work table of where the paintings were being sent, giving me and Danny a chance to speak.

“Perhaps you could help me,” Danny says quickly. I don’t know what he’s doing. What is he doing? “Do you know the location of_ Londres, le Parlement. Trouée de soleil dans le brouillard_?”

I had seen it near the Manet. It would take me a moment to pull it out, but we share a long look. “Of course,” I say eventually. “Perhaps you could help me,” I articulate. Both of us mean a lot more than the sentence entails. “Could you take this, and drop it off in the outgoing mail in the mailroom down the hall while I find the Monet?”

His hands curl around the long tube, and I don’t let go. His eyes flicker from me to the Manet and back. He knows what this means. He knows I’m making him an accomplice, and he’s making me his. It’s a dangerous game, whatever he’s playing. I don’t break eye contact until he moves to leave.

I’ve chosen to trust him in a moment. It’s not my best plan, but before long, I pull the Monet out from its place and use one of the tools left on the table to start pulling it out of the frame. When he gets back, it’s on the work table. His lips part in a smirk.

“Good luck to you,” I say quietly. I hold my breath. Danny just gives me a quick nod, and his smile fades a little.

I make it out of the door just long enough to start running past the mailroom. Part of me wants to just take it, steal it now, bring it with me, but the con is already set. I’m stuck with trusting him.

I should have listened to my gut. I should have run from him when I first met him. He’s like me. He’s a thief, a con artist.

My God. He was probably playing me from the beginning. Is he going to set me up? Are the alarms going to go off?

It doesn’t stop me from pushing open the security door, greeting the guard there, who I know watches me until I slip back into the restroom.

I wait for the last stall. I wait for it to empty. I jump up, I empty the ceiling tiles of my purse, then toss the blonde wig back into my bag. One more quick change of clothes—back into my auburn wig, wipe off the red lipstick, remove the glasses, and find my cane again. With a spritz of water on my face, I make myself look like I’ve been in there for too long, and begin hobbling out to the nearest exit like a sick invalid. The original plan, had I not been intensely spooked, meant I would spend the rest of the afternoon looking at the paintings, but I had to get out. I had to leave.

He’s a thief. I should have known. I did know. I didn’t accept it.

I make it outside, into the cooler air, and keep hobbling until I’m out of sight of d’Orsay. I don’t run, but I push back tears. I struggle until I make it back to my island.

I lie for a living. I should have expected this.

I should have known.


	7. Acceso: On Fire

It’s nearly midnight when the knock on my door happens. I’ve been drinking since noon, off and on, with just enough of a buzz to be brazen enough to answer it.

I keep thinking about the voicemail. The one where he invites me to the museum with him. He doesn’t say why, but it was for the robbery. I know it.

I cannot believe he has the gall to show up here now, not after what happened. His face is different now. A darkness slides over him. I know what it is: it’s that feeling of whatever we had sliding away and it becoming just another lie. I have been here before. It never ends the way it should.

“I don’t have a tail,” he says in French. At least that part of my cover isn’t completely blown. Yet. “May I come in?”

After careful consideration, I slam the door in his face. While irrational, it makes me feel better, until another careful knock on the door and his voice coming through: “I have your mail, Bea.”

My mail. He has my painting. He stole it straight from the museum. My God, he’s going to sign my prison sentence. I don’t want to end up in a French jail. I’ve been once, and I don’t want to go back.

I open the door, just enough for him to slip in, while grasping my cane.

“You can put that away,” he says, nodding to it. “I know you have a hidden blade.”

Setting it on my counter top, away from his reach, I pull out my backup plan: my handgun. I point it at him, steadying it with both hands. He barely bats an eye.

“What is that, a 1911?”

“Kimber 45 cal. Close. Good guess,” I say, circling him. I realize I’ve dropped my accent—out of rage, out of the fact he’s already burned this alias, I’m not sure; he smirks. I’ve got a gun trained on him and he smirks.

“A New Yorker?” He ventures a guess.

“A con artist,” I snap. “Give me the painting.”

He doesn’t buy it. He doesn’t flinch. He keeps circling me until my back is to the door. “The_ Impression: Sunrise_ heist at the Marmottan. That was you, wasn’t it?”

I raise my eyebrow at him but avoid a response. I half expect a _Habanera_ rhythm to pluck itself out of the air as we go tête-à-tête.

“If it was, it was a very impressive job,” he continues. He’s stroking my ego. “Not only did you get away with it, but the current painting, the one I assume you did yourself, has yet to be called a forgery. How did you get away with it? How did you get past the cesium tests?”

I feel my persona slip away. Dr. Eulalie Lacey has died. The piano playing, art enthusiast has slipped away, and I can’t hold onto her. She’s gone as quickly as she had been created, and I feel the blood drain from my face as the realization takes hold.

“Let me tell you one more time: put the fucking painting down and get the hell out of my apartment before I take it there.”

Now he looks taken aback. “Brooklyn. Definitely Brooklyn.”

“I’m gonna give you three seconds.”

“Okay, okay,” he says, his façade chipping just a little. “I wanted to thank you for your help.”

“My help?”

“I may have used it,” he explains. “I slipped the Monet inside when I stole it.”

“Thanks. Thanks, I’m definitely goin’ to jail now. They’re going to think I lifted it!”

“I did my job and lifted it correctly. Oh, ye of little faith,” he snaps, taking a step closer to me.

“I have no idea who you are. I don’t know your credentials. I don’t know anything. Get out of my house. Now. Before I shoot you.”

“You won’t shoot me,” he says. He’s taunting me. “You won’t bring that kind of heat down on your head right now. And what, let Foley clean house once you’re in prison?”

“Are you with them?” I snap. For the first time, he looks wary.

“No. I’ve got nothing to do—“

“You haven’t really given me a good opportunity to actually believe you, you get that?”

“Definitely Brooklyn,” he mutters under his breath. “Then take this as a gesture of good faith. Why would I grab this for you and bring it back if I wasn’t at least telling a fraction of the truth?”

“You have lied to me since the beginning! You staked out my apartment. You made me—you… we…”

“I had no idea,” he immediately says. “I had no idea. You have to believe me on that one.”

“So all of that… the last few weeks, all of that was genuine?”

“The only thing I lied about was my name,” he confirms. I’m not quite ready to put down my gun, but I feel it fall a few degrees. “What about you?”

“My name,” I also confirm. “That’s… that’s about it.”

He squints his eyes at me. “What about Saint-Tropez?”

“The first story was true,” I chuckle. A little pride comes out. I can’t help it. I’ve held it in for nearly two years, so I deserve a little pride in this.

“What’s your real name?”

“You haven’t earned that right yet.”

He steps towards me again. His eyes actually look… sincere. “You have to understand, what I feel for you—what I felt for you, this is real—“

“You’re a con artist!” I yell. I don’t care who hears me. I don’t think anyone around me is home right now. At least, I know I’m going to have to bail on Paris soon. Not with this—this Danny lurking around. He’s backing me into a corner. Figuratively and literally. I’m not going to be able to get out of this corner—“You’re supposed to make me feel it for real!”

“Then I should be blaming you for the same thing!” He cries back. “Because you pulled the same con on me.”

“It wasn’t… it wasn’t a con!”

“I know! I know it wasn’t!”

“Then what the hell was it?” I ask, exasperated. “Two con artists trying to forge an actual relationship, while neither knew the other was lying?”

“That’s exactly what happened!” He says. He’s frustrated. We’re both frustrated, but he has a Manet and I have a 45. I stand there, fuming for a moment. I’m not ready to give this up. I just… I need the painting, I need to get them off my back, I need to… I just need to—

He grabs for the gun. I never turned off the safety, so it doesn’t go off, but it slips out of my hands. I don’t see where it goes, and I try to throw a punch, but he grabs my hand, pulling my wrist behind my back. I slam against the wall, my face nearly hitting, but I stop myself with my free hand. I try to push back, I try to fight him, but with his other hand, he pins my wrist. The Manet’s free. It’s somewhere. He had to drop it. Think, Bea. Think. You’ve been in worse situations. You can get out of this. You can—

I think about his take down. It’s too familiar.

“There’s no way you can be law enforcement. You’re not—you’re not Interpol, or the FBI.”

“No,” he says over my shoulder. “Not anymore.”

“Any… anymore?”

“Why do you need the painting? What do you owe Foley?”

How the hell does he even know about Foley? He’s got me in a damn compromising position. I can weave a lie, or I can tell him the truth. If he’s as good as he thinks he is, maybe he can help me.

“Okay. Okay, let me go and I’ll tell you.”

“You held a gun to my head.”

I sigh into the wallpaper. “They’re blackmailing me. Foley… he’s got powerful bosses, and he’s using me to get his payday. He knows I’m good. He’s capitalizing on it before he turns me over to his boss.”

“Will you tell me your name?”

“I’ve used a few. Belle Ashman, Maureen Larson. Noémie Massenet. Roxie Kander. I’ll let you start with those.”

“My God,” he mutters, letting me go. Why would he just let me go? “You’re the Virtuoso. You’ve been talked about for years. The FBI White Collar unit has a massive file on you. They can’t even figure out your real name.” I circle him and piece it together.

“How—White Collar unit? So you do work for the FBI?” I close the distance between us, and he doesn’t flinch.

“Formerly,” he says.

“That’s funny. Last month, I infiltrated the White Collar Unit in New York. Erased my own files off their database. We burnt the paper trail.”

His face goes a little pale. “The White Collar Unit in New York?” He repeats.

“Yes? I can imagine they weren’t pleased. We did escape unscathed. My partner almost got caught by their section chief.”

“Their section chief? What… what’s his name?”

I don’t even have to try to remember. “Peter Burke. What, are they after you, too?”

“They used to be,” he whispers lightly. “At least give me your first name.”

Despite everything, despite what’s transpired in the last twelve hours, it dances along my lips. But I fight it. I fight it for the time being.

“I’m not going to tell you. The closest you’re going to get is Bea.”

He seems to accept that, just for now, then smiles. “I’m surprised you haven’t figured me out yet.”

“I have a few options, but those would defy the laws of the universe,” I snap.

“Not the laws of the universe,” he says. “Just a few bribes, tetrodotoxin, and an empty gun.”

The blood drains from my face a second time. “No. I don’t—I can’t believe that.” He can’t be who I think he might be, because he’s dead. He’s dead along with Keller. He died two years ago because of something I let slip. There’s no way he could be here, in France, in Paris, even. He can’t. He can’t be alive. That would just complicate everything.

“My name’s not Danny Beauchamp. It’s Neal Caffrey.”


	8. Crescendo: Growing

There’s no way. There’s no—no way—

“You’re supposed to be dead. You—you died in New York. I was there! I was in Manhattan when it happened! It sent ripples through the community. You—you died. You… you conned everyone. The greatest con.”

Neal Caffrey. He’s been in my sights all along. I had… I had conned Neal Caffrey. I had conned the greatest con man in my generation. He had conned me, too, but that’s beside the point.

“I conned you,” I whisper.

“You conned me. I conned you.”

“I lied to you, and you lied to me, but…”

“What I said was real,” he says in his low whisper. “I meant it.”

“Me too,” I whisper.

He nearly pulls me off my feet as he straightens, bringing my lips to his with a strong hand on my jaw. Neal Caffrey. Neal Caffrey. I can’t believe—

He breaks the kiss, still grasping my chin in his hands. “I seriously can’t believe you’re the Virtuoso.”

“I still can’t believe you’re Neal Caffrey.”

“What the hell happened to you?”

“I got shot!”

He lets go of me, his hands slipping into his pockets. “I should have believed you in the first place. Damn. You have some fantastic work under your belt,” he says.

I blush. I actually blush, like a schoolgirl. “And look at you. All the things you’ve done. But I thought you sold out to the FBI.”

“More like a work release program. Until I died.”

“You’ve been pretending to be dead this entire time,” I say, going to my kitchen and finding clean wine glasses. This day, although I expected it to go a little differently, is going frighteningly well. “What made you come out of hiding?”

“What makes you think I’ve been hiding?” He says, taking my offered wine glass. We clink the glasses together. He’s right. He never said he was hiding.

“Why’d you steal the Monet?”

“Because I thought you were going to,” he says simply.

“Wait, what? You thought I was going to steal it?”

He paces around me, admiring my record collection. “You were casing it and the museum the first day we spoke.”

“I was admiring it! I wasn’t casing it!”

He side-glances at me, then chuckles. “You’re serious.”

“I liked the painting! I wasn’t planning on stealing it then, maybe in the future, but no! Not the plan!”

Neal—that’s his name, Neal—starts to laugh.

“Were you trying to be a romantic?” I accuse, but he shakes his head. “What were you going to do?! Present it to me, say ‘I’ve been lying to you, I’m really a con artist and here’s the original version of a Monet?’”

“It’s worked before,” he says, giving me a smile.

“You are both the best and worst con artist I’ve ever seen,” I scoff, finishing off my wine. I go to find the mail tube, pop it open, and pull out the Monet. I hand it to him, and he admires it while I find him another carrier. This one is much smaller, so the one I find by my bookshelf is good enough.

“Full disclosure, the celesta player and xylophonist are dating, and I sent them on a very nice date in return for calling in sick,” he says, slipping his contraband away while I find my gun, thrown on the floor.

I whirl on him. “You set that up? You made sure I could play for the _Firebird_?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” He says, closing the distance between us.

“You are just too dangerous for me,” I say.

“Oh, c’mon. What about that lift at the Louvre? With all the new security upgrades as a result?”

“That was two years ago, Neal.”

“Yes, it was. It made me come to Paris.”

“You’re welcome,” I breathe. He’s already leaning down to kiss me again.

My door snaps open, and this time, I snap off the safety when I aim.

“You’ve got my painting,” he says, trailing in, Kirby following him closely. “I’d like it now.”

Stepping away from Neal, I start towards Foley, my gun still outstretched. “You gonna leave me alone, then? This is it? Clean break?”

I don’t get much of a choice, because Kirby snatches the gun from my hand and nearly breaks my fingers. I almost cry out, but he takes the painting from my arm before I can fight back.

Foley opens up the top and pulls it out just far enough to see the signature. “You moved quickly,” he says, giving me a grin. I want to punch him. “I loved it so much, I think you’ve got time for one more. What do you say—“

“No.”

He approaches me, crossing his arms. “Listen, Roxie. Eulalie. Whoever you are these days. You don’t really have a choice, now do ya?”

“What the hell do you want?”

“Who’s your friend?”

“It’s not important,” I say, not looking back to Neal, but Foley continues to eye him.

“What’ve you got there?”

“My mail,” I say sharply. “What do you want me to lift, Foley? Come out with it.”

“Renoir. _Two Young Girls at the Piano_.”

I wrack my brain, and suddenly I realize.

“I can’t do that. That’s in New York.”

He gives me a wide, sharkish grin. “Exactly. You’re gonna make it happen. I’m gonna have it in my hand before the end of the month, or I tell Moreau exactly where you are.”

“Get the hell out of my apartment,” I hiss.

“I’m going to take that as a yes,” he says, giving a head nod to Kirby. After dumping out the bullets from my gun onto the floor, he sets it on the kitchen island.

“I’ll meet you in New York on Halloween. Sound good to you?”

“Fuck off.”

Foley blows me a kiss as he and Kirby slip out of my apartment.

“God dammit. Dammit!” I cry. I want to curse more, but Neal just stands in the center of the room, holding his own stolen painting. Once I let it out, once I calm down, I finally look to him.

“I can’t go.”

“I can’t either,” he breathes.

“I’m not asking you. I’m not. I can’t ask you to do anything for me.”

“Why did he threaten you with Moreau? Damien Moreau?”

“It’s nothing. It’s nothing,” I say, pouring more wine. I keep drinking. In fact, I just finish off that bottle of chardonnay.

“It’s obviously nothing with the amount of alcohol you’re consuming. What’s he got on you?”

“No. Nope. No. We’re not doing this; we’re not doing this.” I turn to face the counter top. When I do, I see my hands. They’re shaking. My hands shake. I can’t get them to stop. Fuck. Fuck.

I lean against the counter top and run my hands through my hair. He takes a step towards me, he drops the packaged Monet onto the kitchen island, then closes the distance between us.

“What does Foley have on you, and how does it relate to Damien Moreau?” He asks one last time.

I knew it would come to this. I knew he would figure it out sooner or later. I take a breath and launch into the story, knowing it’s better to say it now than to let it fester.

“Moreau… you know who Moreau is and what he does. I’ve had some… friends who’ve had a lot of dealings with him. I’ve crossed his path only a few times. About two years ago, I… I was trying to join the Pink Panthers,” I begin, not looking at his face. “But they were doing some really sketchy things, and I decided I didn’t want to. They had murdered enough people in the name of what we do, and I hated it. So… I dropped a line to Interpol about the ring’s latest location. They never found me; they never found out who did it. Like an idiot, I went to New York. I guess I wanted to see how it would play out or something, but the next thing I know, they’re all serving life sentences after a job in Manhattan.

“Moreau… he’s the one that was bankrolling the group. A couple years ago, he was thrown in jail in a non-extradition country. But up until last month, I find out Moreau has escaped jail and I get blackmailed, essentially, into breaking out Alan Woodford from Sing Sing. Foley’s working for the two of them. We killed one of his lieutenants. They’ve teamed up, and they’re coming after us one by one.”

“Now he’s blackmailing you,” he says, handing me a new glass. This one has ice water in it. Instead of drinking it, I let the condensation wet my hands.

“He is. Between the information we stole from White Collar…”

“You stole information?”

“Moreau made us erase his presence on the FBI database. We didn’t get out very clean. It was a mess for my friend Cee, actually. But we ended up making copies. He’s tracking us all down to get those copies. But Foley… he doesn’t want to give me up to Moreau yet. He wants to make a mint off me first. And he’s guilt tripping me. Moreau… he was an old associate of Matthew Keller.” Neal straightens just enough for me to notice. “Foley was using it against me when he found out Keller and—and—” my voice cracks. I can’t help it. “—you died in the takedown.”

I figure that’s enough. That’s all he has to know, but he takes the glass from my hands and sets it on the counter. After I wipe my hands, he takes them, and for a second, he watches them shake.

“What’s your history with Keller?”

And there it is. I knew he would jump on that. I knew he would. Quick. What do I tell him? A lie? Something far from what it really was? The truth?

“What’s your history with him?”

I try to breathe, I exhale, but it just makes me dizzy. “About… about thirteen years ago, I was just getting into the international scene, and he caught wind of me. Used me as his inside man for a diamond heist in Poland.”

“I remember him telling me about that one.”

I stare down at the ground, trying to center myself. “You worked with him,” I say. Not an accusation. A statement.

“I worked with him, yes. Once. A few times. Not by choice. Are you okay?”

I try to control my breathing, but it’s not working, and he’s noticing.

“I’m fine. I’m fine. He… killed someone,” I say. “I had to bring down Keller. You have to understand—“

“Who did Keller kill?” He says. The room spins, and it feels like all my adrenaline is hitting at once.

I’m going to betray who I am. Is it worth it? Would I rather him know, or keep him in the dark? I wipe the tears rolling down my cheeks and begin.

“He… Keller, and… and my…my dad, I don’t know exactly what they were stealing, but Keller shot and killed him because he left a passport behind.”

His face goes from blank to… some sort of negative emotion. I don’t know what it is. I can’t tell, not when I’m trying not to fly into a rage.

“Your dad was Brendan McTaggart?” He asks quietly.

“You shouldn’t know that. That’s not—you can’t know.”

“That makes you Bridget McTaggart,” he says, his face falling. “He spoke about you.”

“You—you knew him?!”

“That job with Keller was a three-man job.”

“What—what do you mean?”

“I’m saying I was on the team with your dad and Keller.”

I sink to the floor. I should have known, really; the community keeps shrinking as law enforcement gets better. It’s not a surprise. It really shouldn’t be. I try to breathe, but it’s only getting worse as I think about it, and as I think, I realize the only recourse.“This is never going to end. This is never going to end as long as Woodford and Moreau are alive, or—or out. Free. This is never going to end,” I mutter, picking up bullets from my floor. Slowly, meticulously, I start placing them back in the chamber.

“Bridget,” he says my name slowly. It makes me twitch, hearing it from his lips. “Bridget, don’t… just listen. I’ll go with you to the U.S.”

“No. No, no, no. It’s only been two years. They’ll find you. It’s New York! He’s going to find you. He’s going to find me, too, eventually. They’ll always find us in the end—“

“You’re spiraling. Stop. Listen. Slow down. You need my help.”

“Help? Help with what?”

“The con! Stealing that painting! What do you think I’m going to help you with?”

I jump to my feet, and so does he. It doesn’t take me long before I’m pacing. I’ve got an idea, but it’s not a painting heist. It’s something more.“Why New York? Why that painting? It’s a random place, and a random painting. It’s not his usual taste. He wants me there for a reason. He needs me to go there.”

“Okay. So it’s a trap,” Neal says. “Does he have something set up? Another con? A team to set you up for the fall?”

And just like that, it clicks. I pull out my phone, and call up a number. It only rings halfway through one before someone picks up.I immediately speak.

“The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge.”

The voice at the other side of the line laughed, just once, like she knew this was coming. Like she expected it, and just had to wait for me to sort it out myself.

“Where?”

“New York City.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Deadline?”

“Halloween.”

“Personnel?”

“Everyone. Let me… let me touch base with Cee.”

“Same place?”

“Can you hack us some suites?”

“Can I—can I…” she drifts, exasperated.

“Dumb question.”

“Are you sure you’re ready for this?”

“I’m not really sure of anything anymore.”

“Then it’s time.” I can hear Vi typing already as she concludes the phone call. “At length I would be avenged.”

Neal waits, silently, for some sort of explanation. “_The Cask of Amontillado_,” he offers.

“It’s our plan. Our final plan, as it were.”

“Final plan?”

“Taking down Moreau and Woodford for good.”

He just starts to smile.


	9. Capriccioso: Unpredictable

About halfway over the Atlantic, in the middle of our planning session, Neal finally says it.

“You could have told me about the private plane.”

“You could have told me you were Neal Caffrey,” I snap back.

He gives me that cool smile, then one that nearly makes me shiver, if I didn’t know better. “It’s not technically mine, anyway.”

“And whose exactly is it?”

“Ariadne Straus, something odd-granddaughter of Isidor and Ida Straus of the R. H. Macy’s and Sons Strauses.”

“I wasn’t aware there was an Ariadne woven into that family tree.”

I lean forward to whisper. “There is now.”

“Isn’t that a bit high profile?”

I shrug, taking a drink from my champagne flute. “When’s the last time you heard from a Straus?”

“Noted.”

“First thing we need to do when we get into the States is stop by one of my storage containers,” I say, dropping my voice low. “I need some supplies, then we can meet up with the rest of them.”

“The rest of them?”

“A team I’ve worked with before. Actually… two teams. Leverage International is one of them.”

He lets out a low exhale. “Really? I’ve heard they are nasty.”

“They are,” I say, smirking a little. “If you’re on their bad side.”

“Who’s all involved now?”

“Eliot Spencer. Hitter. Rough around the edges, but his heart’s in the right place. Parker, she’s their mastermind—“

“Parker? Seriously?”

“What, do you have a crush?”

He settles into his chair a little, looking out the window. I let it slide. Most of us have had a crush on Parker at some point in our lives.

“And their hacker, Alec Hardison. Do not cross him, trust me. I’m not sure if they’re calling in Nate and Lara Ford yet, but they’re definitely on standby.”

He nods silently. “What about your team?”

“My team? I don’t have a team.”

“That girl you keep calling?”

“Oh, that’s Vi. She’s a hacker. She taught Hardison how to hack early on. She’ll get us in anywhere. And Cee, she’s a hitter, too. Her and Eliot go way back. I mean, way back.”

“So you’re telling me you don’t have a team?”

“The only team I have right now is the team to take down Woodford and Moreau.”

He seems to accept this as a good enough answer, but I do think he take this as a cue to let me be a little dramatic. It’s been a while since I’ve had the chance to be dramatic, and he just clinks his glass against mine.

* * *

We slip into Queens in the rental car. I haven’t been clocked on a camera and flagged in a long time, but I err towards the massive Jersey sunglasses anyway, especially after we avoided customs and security at the tiny private airport.

He lets me drive, which is probably a good thing; we slip into traffic, and I immediately dial a number on my burner phone and put it on speaker.

“What?”

“Cee.”

“Bea. You’ve got a New York area code.”

“Right. 10-20?”

“504. Little busy.” I think there’s gunfire somewhere behind her, and someone that sounds like Eliot yelling.

“I’ll be quick. Vi’s in play. The Cask.”

“The Cask? I’m not ready.”

“You’re going to have to be ready. We’re not going to get another chance.”

Cursing under her breath, she seems to fumble the phone. “Go!” She yells. I wait for a moment, because it sounds like she’s running. Then, from Eliot—“Move your ass, Cee!”

“We’ll be there ASAP.”

“Don’t… don’t hurt yourself. Please.”

“10-4,” She says, and something explodes right before she hangs up.

“She sounds like a great time,” Neal says sarcastically. “How did you get to be friends with someone like her?”

“Shootout in Montreal. It wasn’t my fault,” I add. “I happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. She was running a con, I was running a different con, and we got caught in each other’s cross fire. She got shot that time,” I remember. “A cheap shot, though. Superficial.”

“And she’s involved with this Moreau business?”

I nod and I park outside the storage facility.

“What’ve you got in the storage container?” He says, leaning closer to me. For a second, I enjoy the question. There’s something he doesn’t know. There’s something he never discovered, and not many have.

But I’m going to tell him. It’s too much fun not to.

“You know my mother? I said she was from Montreal?” I say, unlocking the door to the unit.

“Yeah…?”

“Her maiden name was Martel. Her grandfather owned the Martel Art Supply company prior to the Great Depression. Most of his customers were in America, and he lost the contracts when the markets collapsed. He couldn’t unload his warehouse, so he kept it in storage for years.”

I dramatically open the door, and he steps inside in awe.

“It all makes sense,” he breathes, thumbing through the blank canvases stacked against the wall in various sizes. “That’s how you beat the cesium tests.”

“Well, this paint has traces, but not enough to set off their sensors. It was made before the atomic bombs went off, so it’s essentially old paint. I mix a little bit of linseed oil in where they’re dry.”

“Then it’s like you’re painting in 1929,” he murmurs. “How much would I have to pay you to get my hands on some of these supplies?”

Although it’s not paints I need, I start gathering some of the few supplies I’ve kept here: mostly harnesses, burner phones. Some money.

“If you help me with this and put Woodford and Moreau away for good, you can have anything you want,” I say, my eyes flicking from his lips and back to those cobalt turquoise eyes. “To the hotel, then?”

“Lead the way,” he says, his cool tone seeping into his voice even more than usual. I see his eyes dart. I see the way he pulls his hat low. He doesn’t want to be here. He’s scared of something. Scared of the past he ran away from.

“There’s about eight and a half million people in this city,” I say, heading towards Roosevelt Island. “Doubtful your past is going to catch up to us.”

We cross over on the bridge, and he chuckles when he sees the Roosevelt Island tram.

“Somethin’ funny?”

“It’s been two years since I’ve been here and nothing’s changed,” he says.

“Are you kidding? Everything’s changed.”

He’s quiet until we ditch the car at the rental place, gather up our supplies and hail a cab.

“Where are we going?” He says to me in that whisper, so I lean forward and tell the driver The Plaza Hotel.

“I didn’t know you were going for broke,” he says, smirking.

“It’s a weakness,” I respond.

The ride is short, and I hand the driver a twenty before Neal helps me out of the car. Regardless of the fact that he wants to stay relatively low profile, he looks up at the Plaza like he’s come home.

I don’t even check at the desk for a room. I immediately head towards the expansive elevators, and we head to the top floor.

The hallway is empty when we get there, and by the time we make it to the Metropolitan Fifth Avenue Suite, he’s beaming. I knock on the door three times, short, and quick.

The door creaks open, and Vi’s there, this time, in her wheelchair, her computer in her lap.

“Welcome. We’re just setting up.”

“Bea!”

The blonde attacks me with fervor, throwing herself into my arms. I’m definitely shocked, but then again, it’s Parker.

“I’m real sorry, she’s gotten into the food court downstairs. It’s real bad. Doughnuts and chocolates and—hey, Bea.”

Hardison helps to extricate me from Parker’s grasp, giving me a pleasant handshake-hug combo.

For Neal’s benefit—since he was starting to look more and more cool and collected, which I expected was his way of compensating—I point out each individual. “Parker, Hardison, Vi. This is Neal Caffrey.”

Parker’s face goes from hyperactive to stoic in a second. “Neal Caffrey?”

“Parker,” he says, clearing his throat.

“Heard you were dead.”

“Surprise,” he says, giving her a wink. She seems to bristle, but smirks, like she’s interested in the story but doesn’t want to show it.

“Alright, alright, enough with the introductions,” Vi says, typing suddenly. “Cee and El should be here soon.”

“Do all of you function under nicknames that sound like single letters?” Neal interjects, but I wave him off.

“Cee will meet you in Bowling Green later today for instructions,” Vi says, barely looking up from her computer. “We have Parker, Hardison, me, you and Neal, Cee and Eliot. Nate and Lara are in and on standby. We need one more from your end.”

Shit. I didn’t think that far. Of course, we needed someone else. Another con artist. Another—

“I have an idea,” I say, already shrugging back on my jacket. “Neal, you want to come too?”

He pauses, suddenly unsure, but I could see his eyes flicking out the window and that Devil-May-Care attitude shifting into ‘what could go wrong?’

He follows me silently, like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

* * *

Neal adjusts his aviators, and I know he’s nervous. Two years is still long enough to see people he knows, and blowing his cover is the last thing we need right now.

We stand near the center fountain of the small park, waiting for the last piece of the puzzle.

Neal shifts his weight once more and turns towards the Charging Bull statue.

“You didn’t have to come with me,” I say quietly, surveying the people around us.

“I miss New York,” he seems to confess, both concerned and still drinking in the tall buildings, the loud noises, the flitting people.

“Everything in your life worth knowing happened here,” I say. “You could have made a home here, you know.”

“I couldn’t have. Not here. What I did was my only way out.”

“I know my way around ‘only way outs’.”

We shift into silence until I see a pair striding purposefully towards us from the south. Both circle the fountain, giving me a brief head nod before approaching me. Sometimes it’s eerie how similar those two are, but considering what they’ve been through, I’m not always surprised.

“Cee. El.”

“Bea.” She lifts her eyes up to Neal, gives him the once over, and I know it’s not for aesthetic reasons: she’s seeing if he’s got any weapons. “What do you need?”

“We’re at the Plaza. Everyone’s meeting up. I need you both to prep.”

“For the Cask,” Cee says under her breath. “You really want to do this?”

“It’s the only way to stop it. Plus, I trust you.”

Eliot barely smirks, crossing his arms.

“I just want to make sure I get out of this one.”

She immediately straightens, her eyes shifting back and forth. She’s casing the place, whether she knows it or not. That’s one way I never wanted to live: I don’t want to be constantly looking over my shoulder, and that is what seems to be happening right now. But she’s the one I need behind me to make sure whoever’s over my shoulder doesn’t catch me.

“Do you really think he would be stupid enough to come here?” Eliot asks, then seemingly takes it back.

She continues eyeing the park, looking down at the south end. I hear a vaguely familiar voice calling out three card monte.

“He definitely knows,” Cee says. “He knows and he’s coming. We need to stay out of sight. So do you. You can’t be seen with us. Have you found a middle man yet?”

“I’m about to,” I say, looking past their shoulders. “If it comes to it, do what you do best,” I whisper. She nods, seemingly fine with what I’m asking her.

“Text me details when you know it,” she says, and without another word, both of them ghost.

“Who’s this middle man you’re talking about?” Neal says, his voice tense. He already knows.

“I need someone Moreau and Woodford don’t know. Someone someone I can trust. The last piece of the puzzle, as it were,” I say, eyeing the entrance to the park. I peer at the guy running it. Bald, glasses. Familiar. He looks this way, and I hear Neal take a sharp breath.

“We need to leave,” he says, starting towards the north entrance.

“What—why? N-Neal—“

He’s gone before I can say anything. He disappears just like Cee does.

“Hey. Hey! Hey!”

I whirl on the yelling man, and it’s the guy with the card game. It’s been years, but he hasn’t changed a bit.

“Mozzie?”

He looks past me, but manages to stutter—“Maureen!”

“It’s Bea now.”

“Teddy,” he corrects. “Who were you with just now?”

“Nice to see you too,” I stall, stepping into his view. “It’s been years, and I barely get a hello.”

“You were… who was that? Bea, Maureen, whoever you are—you were just with someone.”

“You mean Cee?” I say. “She disappears quicker than you ever have.”

“No, I know Cee. A man,” he corrects, stepping towards where Neal went off. I step in front of him again, blocking his steps. “Tall, strikingly handsome, crooked in all terms of the word.”

“A man asked me the time just now before leaving the park,” I say, allowing my adrenaline to fuel outward exacerbation.

He just shakes his head. A little out of breath, he sighs, his face falling just a little. Checking my watch, I can’t help but feel for the guy. But I know if I don’t distract him, he’ll be gone after Neal. For some reason, something tells me this is the person he was trying to avoid. Or at least, one of them. I’ve got time to distract him, so I pour on the charm.

“Moz—Teddy, what are you doing right now? I have a business proposition for you.”

“Besides falling deeper into a pit of confusion and despair?”

“You haven’t changed.”

“Nothing,” he says. But he’s still scanning. He’s scanning the crowd, the people around us.

“Come get lunch with me and fill me in on why you’re looking for a tall, strikingly handsome, crooked man.”

He’s almost surprised when he looks at me, but I lay my hand on his arm and he’s nodding.

“But not Battery Gardens. They’re a little too bourgeoisie for me. I do like that place just down the street.”

“What about Gigino?” I say, linking my arm in his. His shoulders drop a little more, and he seems a bit more at ease. “Let’s get you some Bordeaux. Oh, does Teddy still like Bordeaux?”

“Oh, yes, he does.”

I guide him down around Battery Park, and we’re silent. I’m fine with it, I work with his silence, because with each step, I’m getting him away from Neal. Whatever their history is, I can discover it soon.

We get ourselves a table once I convince the maître d’ I’m some sort of high level Wall Street trader, and with a little finagling, a bottle of their finest Bordeaux is added to the account of who I claim is my boss.

“You… you’ve gotten better since I last saw you,” he says, taking a long drink from his glass.

“I don’t remember how long it’s been anymore.”

He, on the other hand, barely has to think. “Six years, two months, eighteen days.”

“You never cease to amaze me. Wow. Has it really been that long?”

“You came to me under the name Maureen Larson fifteen years ago.”

“I was nineteen and just starting my illustrious career,” I say over the rim of my wine glass. But there’s more he wants to talk about, and quite frankly, I don’t have the time to fuss about.

“Mozzie. Teddy,” I correct myself, “Sorry. Who… who did you think you saw?”

He sighs, and fumbles with his silverware. “Did you ever hear about what happened to Neal Caffrey?”

“I was here,” I say quietly. “He got involved with the Pink Panthers, tried to help the FBI take them down, and died in the crossfire.”

“More or less,” he says, clutching his glass. “I spent a year going through it in my head. What happened, what could have gone differently. He… he left me the card he first conned me with, right at the park…” He drifts, and I let him. I want to say something, but it’s not my place. “The Suit—uh, Neal’s old handler—the Suit got a bottle of Bordeaux about a year after Neal died. Showed up on his stoop. One thing led to another, and he found a storage unit, with all the information on how he would have faked his death. It’s been two years, Maureen. Bea. Sorry. Two years, and he hasn’t come back.”

“He’d be a wanted man, wouldn’t he?”

He looks out to the waterfront, and I see the tears welling in his eyes.

“I just want to know he’s alive. I’ve got all these theories floating in my brain and I just—I need to know he’s alive.”

“What about this handler he had? The Suit?”

“He’s always looking,” Teddy says. “Every little chance he gets, he’s looking for Neal, but nothing. He’s gone off the grid. He’s somewhere else, living with his little nest egg, letting us fend for ourselves. It’s selfish. It’s greedy. It’s…” He finishes off his glass. The waiter comes over to pour him more, but with a hand, I encourage him to leave the bottle.

“What’s his handler’s name?” I ask, continually phishing for information. “He worked with the White Collar Unit, right?”

“Oh, Peter. Peter Burke.”

Peter Burke—

The Special Agent in Charge. The man whose office we nearly destroyed.

But Mozzie doesn’t know that, and he continues in his musings. I try to control my breathing.

Everything’s just so Goddamn intertwined.

“I wish he knew. The Suit and Mrs. Suit had a baby,” he mutters. “Do you know what they named him?”

The blood rushes from my face. I shouldn’t be this involved. I shouldn’t, but I brought Neal into this so it’s my responsibility to bring him out.

“The baby’s name is Neal,” he announces to me.

My heart drops.


	10. Ossia: Otherwise...

As soon as I make it back to the Plaza, Neal knows I’m going to tear into him and is already seemingly prepped. He mills about in the sitting room, arms crossed tightly over his chest.

But I can’t tear into him. I can’t now. I don’t know what he knows, and it’s not his fault.

“I’m sorry, Neal,” I begin, and his face immediately softens. “I didn’t know. I had no idea you and Mozzie knew each other.”

Suddenly relieved, he shakes his head, releasing the tightness of his arms. “There’s no way you could have known.”

“How—“

“The entire time I lived here.”

“God, Neal. You understand—“

“That we need to loop him in for this con to work. I know. He’s going to have to hear the truth, and it’s going to have to come from me. I know.”

I run a hand over my face. “When did our lives become so damn complicated?”

“When weren’t they complicated?”

“Good point. How do you want to do this?”

He looks down at his shoes. I don’t know if he’s ever really thought about it, to be honest. Sure, he’s fantasized about it, but when it comes down to it, you can never truly prepare yourself.

“Neal. Neal, you came to New York knowing this could happen. If you don’t do something about this while we’re here, you’re going to regret it forever. It was Mozzie! He’s been looking for you, and someone named the Suit has been looking for you. I think he’s earned it. I’ve invited him back here tonight,” I say quietly. “The con doesn’t depend on you two seeing each other. I just need a middle man. It’s up to you. Either take a walk at 9, or stick around. I’ll let the others know about the possibility. And Neal?”

He finally lifts his head to look at me.

“I’m pretty sure Mozzie already knows.”

He gives me a sad smile.

* * *

I’m not sure what Neal’s going to decide until about 8:45 that evening. I don’t know if he knew what he was going to decide. But I know what to prepare for, and I make sure I wait for Mozzie outside the hotel to give him the briefing on the way up.

From his expression, I have a feeling he knows. I don’t try to hide it, either.

“Maureen,” he says, his tone all business.

“Mozzie. Thanks for coming out to help.”

“Anything for a friend,” he says, almost sharply.

“About that. I should fill you in on something that’s going on,” I say as the elevator doors close. I have an inkling it was smarter to have him in the elevator for this part of the conversation. “Earlier today. You spoke about a man I supposedly was with.”

He visibly straightens, staring at the reflective surface of the elevator.

“I wasn’t straight with you. Although a lot of it is still coming to light, and I’m really only now understanding how it all fits together, I need you to know that I didn’t want to betray either of your trust.”

“You are lucky I’m in this elevator right now,” he says through clenched teeth. “I should leave. I—I—“

“I told him before: if you don’t do something now, you’ll regret it forever. So use the time you’ve been given, alright, Moz?”

The elevator opens and he’s hesitant. I start out, hoping for him to follow; before long, I hear his footsteps behind me. When I make it to the suite door, he lays a hand on mine.

“Wait. Just give me a second.”

“Take your time.”

He inhales, then exhales, then lets me open the door. Neal’s already there, standing in the foyer, waiting, hands in his pockets. A smile graces his lips, but it immediately falls when he sees Mozzie, tears forming in his eyes, like nothing could have prepared him.

I shut the door behind us, and Mozzie runs his hands over his face, looking like he’s ready to blow.

“You could have told me!” Mozzie finally erupts, closing the distance between him and Neal.

“I couldn’t tell you!” Neal says. “If you knew, you’d just follow!”

“How do you know?” Mozzie growls. “How do you know? You cut me out!”

“If I had told you, you wouldn’t have let me go. Neither you or Peter. You wouldn’t have let it happen.”

“Two years. Two years, Neal, and I got nothing. Peter? He gets the Bordeaux. I got nothing!”

“If you wanted a present, all you had to do was ask—“

“You know what I mean! Dammit, Neal! Dammit.”

His face lessens in redness as he shook his head, but eventually, finally, he starts to speak with a level tone. “I’m never going to forget what you did. But I may choose to forgive you. Today is not that day. Tomorrow is not looking good either, but I would consider forgiving you. Just… today’s not the day for it.”

“That’s all I ever ask for, Moz.”

Mozzie’s face goes from slightly angry to a little less angry at the sound of the nickname on Neal’s lips. With that, Mozzie pulls Neal into a hug. It takes everything in me not to cry.

“We’ll deal with the rest of this later,” Mozzie finally says, straightening his shoulders. “Let’s talk about this issue at hand.”

I usher them both into the living room, where the rest of them have congregated. “Alright, should we do introduction, or do we all know each other?”

Mozzie gives an awkward salute to Parker. “We all know each other,” he indicates.

“I don’t know what I expected,” I mutter, sitting on the arm of the chair Neal has chosen. “Alright. Let’s recap.”

Hardison and Vi both begin typing, bringing up two separate dossiers on the television, side by side.

“Alan Woodford,” Vi begins, “Suspected head of the Pink Panthers. Arrested in 2014 as a result of a failed heist, with the undercover work of Neal Caffrey. Thought to have resulted in his death, but turns out he’s a criminal mastermind and faked it.”

He gives us a shark-like grin. Mozzie just harrumphs.

Hardison takes over. “Woodford was in Sing Sing Prison serving several life sentences. His henchmen, Declan Swithey and Brandon Foley, kidnapped Cee and tried to force her to help them break Woodford out. To get them off her ass, we teamed up and broke him out, with a set up waiting for him, but they double crossed us—“

“Triple crossed us?” Vi offered.

“Doesn’t matter how many crosses, they nailed us,” Hardison continues.

“Damien Moreau was waiting for me,” Cee states, her voice cold. “They beat the shit out of me and left me to be found as warning.”

“Damien Moreau, archnemesis,” Hardison says. “The Central Bank of International Crime. He finances everyone, and it turns out we shut him down, so now he needs funds, or payback, or both.”

I start in as well. “Last month, we were here in New York. We broke into the White Collar Unit, and wiped our own files from their server. Mostly for Moreau, but we used it for our own information too. Then we kept the files. Afterward, when Burke didn’t catch Cee like Moreau had intended, he kidnapped her and tried to blow her up.”

“Peter Burke knows Cee, Parker, and Hardison are not FBI,” Eliot clarifies.

“Wait, are you talking about the explosion at North Brother Island?” Mozzie asks.

“That would be the same one,” I say.

Mozzie shakes his head in disbelief, almost like he’s regretting joining our squad.

“We’ve been trying to find Moreau since,” I say. “Vi’s kept tabs on him. I tried to disappear, but it turns out Foley found me. He’s got a new partner in crime, Kirby—“

“Since we killed Swithey,” Cee says under her breath.

“—so those are our targets. He wants his information. We’ve all got a copy, so he’s going to take us out one by one until he knows he’s got it all. So that’s what we’re going to do.”

“The Cask of Amontillado. A con to end this damn war. We’re going to bait Woodford and Moreau and bury them in their own greed and motivations.”

“Nice allusion,” Mozzie adds.

“Thanks,” Vi says. “Also, nice to see you again, Teddy.”

“Likewise, Ulalume.”

“You can call me Vi.”

“Oh, she has a name, and not just an internet handle?”

“Stop flirting, you two,” Parker says offhandedly, getting up and starting to pace. “So the Cask. Three parts: the lure, the trap, the kill.”

“The kill?” Neal says. “I’m not going to be part of a murder—“

“It’s the only way we’re gonna stop these guys,” Eliot says. “There’s no way. If they gain traction again, especially Moreau, there’ll be no way to take them out.”

“Besides, if I get close to them both, they’re going to die,” Cee says with finality.

It’s not my favorite plan either, but I know the stakes. If someone has to die in this, it’s not going to be us. It’s going to be them.

“Wait,” Mozzie says. Something’s brewing in that brain of his, and I see it. He stands up, goes to the bar, selects what I assume is probably a Bordeaux, and pours himself a full glass. We’re all waiting for him to speak, but he drinks enough before he does. “Instead of committing murder, I have a better idea.”

“We’re waiting for you to down that glass of wine first,” Cee says. “Get on with it, Moz.”

“The lure: I’m assuming you’re going to send Bea in, circumventing their blackmail middleman, and tell Moreau you’ll get the information back if they’ll call off their dogs?”

“That would be the first step, yes,” Vi says, squinting her eyes at Mozzie. “Why Bea though?”

“Unfortunately, Bea, you’re the weakest link,” he begins. I’m about to protest when he continues. “Vi, you’re too much for him to handle. You’re never going to give up the files. Cee, you’ll beat the man to death before you do such a thing. But Bea… Bea, you’re delicate. You’re a con artist, like they are. You’ve got a history with the both of them, and you can use it. You’re the only way in.”

I can’t really respond. I know he’s right. It’s what we’re already banking on.

“So you’re going to get all the information back, right?”

“That wasn’t the original plan—“ I begin, glancing at Vi. She’s quiet. She’s just glaring at Mozzie.

Parker speaks up. “No, but you’re right. He’s going to want the files. He doesn’t want anything else. That was his original plan to begin with; he wanted everything deleted to give him a fresh start. He can’t while we have them. So—“

“—in order to make sure you’re in, you’re going to have to steal back all those flash drives from the people you allied with. It’s a double pronged attack,” Mozzie explains. “Solidify your loyalty to him and get his information back.”

“Each one of us has the information, so each one of us has to scatter,” Parker continues. It’s like watching an improvised jazz duet between two world class musicians: they just get better and better as they speak. “She’ll go after each one of us, and return all the information to him.”

“Who’s to say she’s not holding back, though?” Mozzie says. “He’s going to expect a double cross.”

“He’s going to threaten to kill us if she doesn’t,” Cee interjects. “He’ll have us killed if we don’t succeed. If Bea doesn’t succeed.”

“Great, so all this sits on my shoulders,” I say, shifting in my seat. It’s all going to depend on what I can do.

“Not all of it,” Mozzie says cryptically. I already have an idea of what he’s thinking, and I’m not sure I like it.

* * *

It’s late by the time I hear them set in. Hardison and Parker are set up in the master bedroom, Vi posted up on the sofa bed in the living room—I don’t know if she’s even planning on sleeping; she declared the sofa bed sufficient, probably to be close to her gear—Cee and El took the second, smaller bedroom—although I’m unsure whether they plan to sleep, either–while Neal and I took the back bedroom. I hear Mozzie and Neal in the living room off our bedroom, so I listen to their conversation. I don’t know if I should, but my curiosity threatened questions if I didn’t.

“You’re allowed to be mad. You’re allowed to be furious. I’m not going to try to take that from you. You know my reasons. You know I didn’t have a choice.”

“I know you didn’t,” Mozzie says. He sighs, he groans. “It was supposed to be us. It was supposed to be together.”

“You know why I didn’t. The moment you and I both disappeared, he would know. You’ve been doing fine for yourself, so I hear.”

“That’s not the point,” Moz snaps. He seems to take a moment to drain a glass of wine. In the silence, the mood shifts. “You know, he named his son Neal.”

“Neal Robert Burke,” Neal says. “How old is he now?”

“One and a half. I never thought I could admire a child, but here we are.”

“What’s he like?”

“Started walking at nine months. He’s already speaking in short sentences.”

“Do you have him reciting Kafka yet?” Neal chuckles.

“No, but he does say ‘Moz’ when he needs me.”

I sink down to the floor, leaning against the wall. Neal grows quiet.

“I’m so sorry, Moz.”

“Fate has a way of putting in front of us, that which we most try to leave behind. I knew you’d be back.”

“Couldn’t stay away.”

“Well, you think we can actually pull this off?”

“Nail Woodford and Moreau, while staying out of Peter’s way? I’m… I’m not sure.”

“We might not be able to stay out of Peter’s way,” Mozzie trails off.

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“A query for the morning,” Mozzie says. “I’ll be back when I’m needed.”

Neal leans onto the doorway. “You’re always needed, Moz.”

“Sycophant.”

With a harrumph, Neal finds me on the floor, listening. But he doesn’t ask. He just helps me to my feet and kisses me on the forehead.

“You okay?”

He just nods.


	11. Cadenza: Solo

The next night, the night before we start our final con, I don’t sleep. I really can’t. I don’t know what else to do, besides pace. Gone is the fluttering sheet music, the smell of coffee coming up from the café below. I don’t see the Eiffel Tower from my balcony. Not anymore. I knew I lingered too long in Paris. I should have known it would take a nasty turn. I tried to live a life of casual luxury, a slower pace, and I should have known.

That’s not something I can do, whether I like it or not.

Regardless, like I considered before, Eulalie Lacey is dead and now I have to focus on the next con. The next person I have to become.

A backstabber. A double crosser. Someone weak. I have to be convincing this time. I have to do the best job I’ve ever done.

I have to burn everything I’ve built down.

“Remember, he’s going to move quickly, so don’t worry about checking in with us,” Parker says. “We know what you’re about to do, and we know when we have to play along.”

“You’re going in without comms,” Hardison says. “I don’t like it, but we’re not going to risk you getting caught. If you’re coming in and you’re being surveilled, what’s the code phrase?”

“’How about them Mets?’” I recall.

“Good, good,” Parker mutters.

“You know what to do?” Neal says, stepping forward from his own perch. “You know how to convince him to—”

“I’ve got this. You know I’ve got this.”

He nods, slipping back into his place in the makeshift circle. I look around. It really is a tour de force. Two con artists, two hackers, a thief, two hitters, and me. Half of the most dangerous people in the world are in this suite in New York City.

“Let’s go. I’m ready.”

By the time Hardison runs the encrypted line to Moreau, and sends the text, I can feel my heart in my chest. This con is on, this con is moving. This con is alive.

Almost like a heist, it begins. I create the symphony in my head.

* * *

I really hate the Brooklyn Bridge. I hate it even in the day time, but it’s at its worst at night. I remember a story my father told me once: if you’re walking alone on the Brooklyn Bridge at night, don’t turn around. Even if you hear footsteps. Especially if you think you’re being followed. You’ll see a man with no face.

I hear the footsteps now. But I know who they have to be: I step away from the edge of the bridge. I’m afraid if I’m too close, they’ll just push me off.

“Virtuoso,” Moreau says. Everything about him is slick. It makes me shiver.

“Moreau. Woodford,” I say. He bristles. We all know what happened the last time we were together. Cee almost ended up dead.

“What are your terms?” Moreau says. He’s right to business. I have to be, too. It lies on me to get them to pick the location.

“Would you give me a chance to think? God. Straight to business, yeah?”

“Hurry up,” he says.

“I’m done with this. I’m done with this fighting, this… this insanity. I don’t have the power to fight anymore, you get that? I wanna do what I couldn’t do before.”

Woodford scoffs, but Moreau holds up his hand to shut him up.

“I wanna join your crew.”

“After everything you’ve done to fight against me, you want to join?” Moreau says skeptically.

“I told you. I can get back all the information. I can make sure it’s in your hand and then you can do whatever you want with it. I wanna work with you. They were too soft to begin with.”

Moreau seems to take me in for a moment. I straighten. I can’t help it.

“You’re gonna have to work your way in.”

“I expected as such.”

"I want you to steal back those drives from each of them.”

“I’m your girl,” I say. Everything makes me want to clench my teeth, to fight against it, but I can’t. I have to play this out. “I do have one favor to ask in all this.”

“What’s that?”

“Your henchmen—Foley and Kirby? They’re trying to extort me. They’re threatening me that they’ll tell you where I am and I have the information. They’re the only reason I here. They want me to steal something and I’m just done, Moreau. Call off your damn dogs.”

He shakes his head. “We’re done with those two. Woodford. Can you take care of that for us?”

Woodford slips his gun out of his jacket and cocks it. “I can fix that problem.”

“Thank you,” I say. “Makes hunting some people down a little bit easier when I don’t have a tail.”

“Hurry it up, Virtuoso,” Moreau says. I already start walking away. “Time’s a tickin’.”

“I’ll get it done.”

* * *

Staging retrievals with Hardison and Parker was easy. Vi, she was a little harder, because she intended to make it more believable and made me search through her computer files.

Cee and Eliot desperately wanted to hit me, just to play the part, but I decided it would be easier if I just stole the files quietly. They gave them up easily.

I meet Moreau once more, this time, without Woodford. We find each other in the middle of Central Park. The last time any of us were here, Cee was running for her life from the FBI.

I dump the flash drives into Moreau’s waiting hand.

“You do quick work, Virtuoso.”

“I’m a force to be reckoned with,” I say. I can’t help it. It comes out a little more passionate than I intended, but he doesn’t seem to care. “Where’s Woodford? Is he hiding some bodies?”

“They’re not going to bother you anymore.”

“That’s a bright notion. Thanks for that.”

Moreau just pockets the flash drives. “I need you to do one more thing.”

“Oh, yeah? Please don’t tell me it’s going to be some grand gesture. I’m not big on grand gestures. Let’s just take a nice train ride out of town. Maybe head off to the north? I heard Yonkers is nice this time of year—”  
He bodily turns me around. I didn’t realize this was going to be happening so quickly. I guess I didn’t give him enough credit.

“You know, we could light up this whole town, you and I,” I try, but I feel the sickeningly familiar feeling of a gun barrel into the small of my back. I’m alone on this one, I’m afraid, but at least it’s all going according to plan.

“You at least gonna tell me where we’re goin’?”

“It’s time we have a private chat.”

He forces me into a car, one that pulls up right at the crosswalk as we leave Central Park. I hope to God Hardison and Vi see this on the city’s cameras. I hope to God they—


	12. Caesura: Breath

I wake up violently. I just hope to God we’re in the right place. If we’re not, I desperately fucked up, and I’m actually dead this time. I start to open my eyes, and when I look up, there’s intricate latticework holding up old, nearly broken glass. The entire building looks like it could collapse at any time, and it’s covered in graffiti.

It worked. It somehow worked. We’re at the Glenwood Yonkers Power Plant. Colloquially named the Gates of Hell.

Alright. Alright, we can do this. I know my team isn’t going to be far behind. I don’t have my comms, sure, but we have the timing down to a science.

At least I hope we do. There’s a lot hinging on a lot of moving parts.

As I try to blink awake, I’m greeted with a heavy right hook to my face. I’m nearly knocked unconscious, but I shake it off eventually and find myself peering at Woodford. Moreau stands not far behind.

“What the fuck is going on?” I yell. “I thought we had a deal, assholes!”

They’re disheveled. They’re antsy. They don’t have the time to figure out each step: they know we’re coming for them. It’s nice seeing them squirm. I just hope Moreau is as frantic as he appears.

We’ve cut them off. They have no funds, they have no backup, just the last two nameless mooks they’ve brought with them. They have to have a play here. They have to have a play just like us.

“We know you’re just trying to double cross us,” Woodford says.

“Wouldn’t it technically be triple crossing?” I suggest. “It doesn’t matter, really, because it’s false! Why the hell would I do that to my friends unless I was… unless I was…”

From behind them, I see Eliot and Cee take out the last two remaining henchmen Woodford and Moreau had. It’s so pleasing to see, especially now.

“Unless I was waiting for them,” I say.

Woodford draws his gun, but so does Cee. Moreau draws his gun on El, but he barely bats an eye.

Parker comes in behind, shielded still by the hitters. I feel Neal untie me from my chair. Hardison, Mozzie, and Vi must be hidden at this point, somewhere far away or in a rental van. I’m glad, too, because the less people at this showdown, the better.

“Caffrey,” Woodford says, slightly shocked. “Wouldn’t have pegged you for one to come back from the dead.”

“Looks like you didn’t know me at all, Woodford.”

I step backwards, knowing the further we get out of the blast radius, the better. I don’t know how big this one could be.

“There’s no point in running,” Parker says. “You have no place to go.”

“You have nowhere to go, either,” Moreau says. He’s getting desperate. He’s holding his gun high, but I see his hands start to shake. That’s not good for him. Not at all.

“You might want to go out shooting, Moreau, but I’m not willing to do that,” Woodford says. “I’d rather live through this and break my way out of Sing Sing again.” He turns to me instead. “He’s got bombs set up around this place. He’s gonna blow this whole—”

Woodford stops talking at the sound of a silenced gunshot. The blood blooms through his chest, and he falls to his knees. I watch Woodford die on the glass-shard covered floor of the Gates of Hell. That wasn't part of the plan. We all glance to each other. Moreau is falling apart.

“Takes care of him, now doesn’t it?” Moreau says.

“It’s actually better for him,” I say, breaking everyone’s silence. He’s got bombs, too. This could get insane. Cee steps aside now that I have Moreau distracted, and it leaves her open to do whatever she needs to do.

“They’ve already got the information. That, and more. While you were busy forcing me to do your dirty work, I had the two best hackers in the world making sure you were linked to every single terrorist organization in the world. Mostly money laundering. Al-Qa’ida. ISIL. Boko Haram. The Mujahideen organizations. ISIS. Hezbollah. Anytime they move money, you’ve got your hands in it. So guess what? You did a solid for Woodford over there. He’s not going to do any time for terrorism charges. You made sure of that. Now? Now it’s just you. Terrorism, murder… Woodford and Foley. See, I made sure they got all the information they needed for that one, too.”

He aims the gun at me. He’s panicking. I don’t think he saw this part coming. Which is a first, I think. We’re hitting him from all angles this time. He didn’t have enough time to dig himself out.

He was just missing one crucial plot point. We came with more backup.

He swivels, aims the gun at me, and fires.

* * *

_Earlier_

I exhale heavily. This part is going to be the hardest, and I know right away it’s not going to play out like I expect.

I wait in the darkened storage container lot, my hood pulled so conspicuously over my head, my leg bouncing.

“Stop it. You’re making me nervous,” he says.

“I hate law enforcement.”

“I do too, why do you think I ran from it?”

I clear my throat loudly as I see Mozzie and another figure approach. He’s taller, leaner, and I know he’s got a gun. He’s an FBI agent, for crying out loud.

I pull down my hood as they get closer, and stride forward, closing the distance between us.

“Hey, Moz,” I say, my voice clear of any waver. I’ve gotten used to hiding my nerves.

“This is the Suit you’ve heard so much about,” he says, almost bored, as I nod at the Suit. I hadn’t seen him in person before, but he’s exactly what I would expect, yet nothing I would expect. He’s got the appearance of a straight laced agent, but there’s something in the dark and in his eyes that make me think he sees less in black and white and more in shades of gray.

“Are you one of his criminal friends?” He says, tiredly, bored, then to Mozzie: “Honestly, what’s her name, and what are her crimes?” He sounds like he’s been through this before.

I sigh. “Is this off the record?”

The Suit seems to consider it for a moment. “Have you ever killed anyone?”

“No,” I say confidently.

“Alright. You get immunity.”

Mozzie scoffs, then chuckles.

“What,” the Suit deadpans.

“She’s the Virtuoso,” Mozzie says.

Peter glances from him, then back to me again. “Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“Seriously?”

“Sorry, Suit," Moz adds.

“You can call me Bea,” I say. “Don’t think you’re gonna get my real name.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he sighs. “So how can we get you out of this mess? What can I do?”

“You’re both going to help, just like that? I don’t understand. You’re a Fed,” I say. None of this makes sense.

“I’ve got my own debts to pay,” he says cryptically.

“What did you tell him?” I ask Mozzie.

“You’re a friend of Neal’s.”

He’s an honorable man amidst dishonorable ones, so it seems. “Okay, since I’m holding to your immunity clause, my crew and I were blackmailed into breaking into your office last month.”

“Good God, Mozzie—“

“Just listen,” he chastises.

“We were forced by some old enemies—Damien Moreau and Alan Woodford—to commit the crime. They were going to kill us. When they made us break Woodford out, they almost killed my friend Cee—“

“Your crew did the Woodford break too? That’s it, you’re under arrest—“

“Do you want them back or not?” I say, stepping backwards. It’s escalating too quickly. He’s jumpy.

“I want them back,” he sighs.

“Listen. Moreau had a man killed. This is where you’ll find the body. There’s enough evidence there to make sure he gets convicted,” I say, handing him the information I had written down. “But we can get them for much bigger crimes if you’ll let us, and we’ll get all your files back. In two weeks, I’m going to be kidnapped and taken to the abandoned Glenwood power plant. Up in Yonkers. You know it?”

“I know the place.”

“They’re rebuilding the power plant, right? I can guarantee you they’re going to rig it to blow up. And what would you call that?”

“Terrorism, I think,” The Suit says. "How are you gonna get them to do that?"

"Con artist magic trick."

“And you expect me to just let you set these two up for the fall?”

“You’ve read their files, haven’t you?” 

“Before you destroyed them, yes,” he says, crossing his arms.

“Then you know what they’ve done.”

He just nods. He nods, and I know he’s in. He’s too much of a good man to see past the questionable road. We’ve just got to get to the end, where the end justifies the means.

“So why the hell are we here in the first place?” he finally asks.

“Because certain individuals are dramatic fucks,” I say. “Listen, Burke, I’m sure you know why we’re here. Firstly, I needed a safe place to talk to you. Secondly, there’s no way we could do this easily.”

His face goes from confused, to almost stoic. His eyes flicker to the side. “The storage container I found. With Neal’s things.”

“When you really realized he was alive,” I say.

Even in the dark, I can see the blood drain from his face. “Neal?”

He steps out of the shadows, and Peter runs his hands over his face, steps back, and looks up to the night sky. He looks mad, he looks distraught, he looks confused. All of these emotions pass over his face before he settles on determined.

“We knew you were alive,” is Peter’s first statement. “We knew, and you knew. You knew we knew.”

“I did.”

“Why didn’t you… why did you… I could have helped you.” Peter tries, and I see the concern and confusion melding in his face. “Dammit, Neal, you didn’t have to die! I could have gotten you a deal, or—“

“How many deals did you get me? How many times did you try to get me out on good behavior, or—or if we solved this one last case, then maybe, just maybe, I could get out? How many times, Peter? I saw my out, and I took it. I’m sorry it upset you, I’m sorry I had to lie to you, but I’m not sorry I did it.”

“Two years, Neal. Two years.” Peter just puts his hands on his hips, looking at Neal with disbelief.

“You got the Bordeaux,” Neal says poignantly.

“My son turned one in June.” Peter doesn’t look away from Neal. In fact, his eyes start to tear up.

“I know. I marked it down,” Neal says quietly. They stand at an impasse, several feet apart for the first time since Neal died.

Both of them move at the same time, immediately embracing.

* * *

_Now_

Three things seem to happen at once: the bullet smashes not into me, but into Cee as she pushes me out of the way; I hear the cry of “FBI!” from somewhere outside, and Moreau prematurely trips a wire, causing the entire floor to shatter.

I can’t hear much. All I can hear is ringing. I clench my eyes shut; the smoke makes them burn. Everything’s burning. Everything’s moving too fast, and too slow at the same time.

The building looks like it could come down around us.

Over the ringing, I hear someone’s voice: I hear a voice, yelling. It’s Eliot. Eliot’s yelling.

“Call out! If you’re okay, call out!”

“Mozzie!”

“Neal—“

“Bea!” I call, waiting to hear the rest.

“Shit! I mean, Vi!” She coughs a few times, but seems okay.

Eliot’s yelling again, though—“Cee. Cee, c’mon—“

There’s heavy wheezing, coughing, and a groan. “I’m okay. I’ll be okay.”

We’ve got everyone. We’ve got—we’ve got everyone.

“We’ve got to get out of here.” Neal doesn’t seem to be hurt, but he got the brunt of the dust and dirt, and he’s busy trying to dust himself off and make sure he’s okay. I don’t know if I’m hurt. I don’t care. Eliot’s bloody, so what else is new—he was closer to the blast—and Cee, well, Cee is Cee. Eliot pulls her to her feet, but she immediately collapses.

“I wanna see him!” She calls out. “I wanna—give me the gun. Give me my gun, Eliot.”

“Cee, we gotta get out of here—“

Vi speaks up. “Give her the gun.”

I can’t help but agree. If they’re dead, if they’re well and truly dead—

Eliot hands over the pistol to Cee, and she wobbles, she kicks away some boards, some fallen scaffolding, to find Damien Moreau. There’s not much left.

She lets loose three bullets into his skull. I look away on the second shot.

“They’re gone. They’re dead.”

Cee’s turning pale, probably from blood loss.

“We gotta get out of here before the entire cavalry arrives,” Neal says. “I don’t want to be here when the FBI brings in all their crime scene investigators, do you?”

There’s not a lot of time. He’s right. But it’s hard for me to just walk away.

Moreau and Woodford. Dead in front of me. They’re dead and gone. And we didn’t even do it. They did it to themselves. It was their fault. Their—

“Bea, c’mon!”

I nearly fall over my own feet as we make a break for the van. Mozzie’s opened the door, beckoning us inside, but I skid to a stop when I see the pair of FBI agents comprising the forward camp.

One of them immediately drops his gun at the sight of Neal, and he just starts to laugh.

“What’s the status?” Peter says.

“They’re dead,” I say. “Moreau shot Woodford and then set off his own bomb."

“You’ll find all the information you need here,” Vi says, tossing him one of those Godforsaken flash drives. “I loaded all of the audio we got from inside and all the proof you need, but I guess they’re dead now, so it doesn’t matter, now does it?”

She slips back into the darkness of the van, looking spooky enough.

“Who is she?” Peter asks absentmindedly.

“Ulalume. She also goes by Zante or Aristogeiton.”

“Seriously? That’s her?” Peter whispers to Neal.

“I’m sure you’ve got a file on me,” she says, still lurking.

“We did. A lot of it was destroyed last month in the… break-in,” Peter slightly accuses.

She smirks, winks.

“Liked the nickname.”

“What was her nickname?” Mozzie asks Peter.

Peter just sighs. “The Raven.”

“We’d love to chat, but we really need to get out of here,” I remind them. “Cee’s kind of bleeding out in the back.”

“Oh, God—”

Neal steps in. “Peter, I—”

“Six pm. You know where to find me. Be there, okay? Can you please be there this time?”

“I’ll be there,” Neal confirms. “I promise.”

* * *

We head for the hills, figuratively and emotionally. All of us are left silently looking at each other as Hardison drives the van back into the city. We stop in some sort of unfamiliar warehouse district, and I know it’s time to part ways.

“Where does this leave us?” I ask, looking around the group.

“Paris. Three weeks,” Vi suggests.

“Where?” Cee asks as she’s literally held upright by Eliot.

Mozzie, our quick thinker, recites, “Fair isle, that from the fairest of all flowers, thy gentlest of all gentle names dost take! How many memories of what radiant hours at sight of thee and thine at once awake!”

I know the message. I know it, and Vi smiles. “Sonnet to Zante.”

“I know my Poe, Raven,” he mutters to her.

Neal steps towards Mozzie. “Moz, I—“

“I’ll see you in Paris, Neal.”

Neal nods, giving him a poignant smile. “I’ll see you in Paris.”

As they head off, I turn to Cee. “Cee, I am so sorry. I am so sorry… this is my fault. You keep getting hurt, and it’s my fault.”

She just gives me a grin. “It’s not your fault. Thank you. Moreau is dead. Woodford, Foley, Kirby… they’re all dead. Swithey’s dead. I can finally have peace. That’s… that’s on you.”

I nod. I guess I can take responsibility for that one. Eliot, he just gives me a short shake of his head, and they’re gone too. They all disperse, leaving just me and Neal and the fading sunlight.

“I think you have somewhere to be.”

* * *

Neal knows exactly where to go at 6. We’re in Brooklyn, sliding behind fences and down familiar alleys, but before I realize it, he’s unlocking a fence gate and we’re sneaking into someone’s backyard.

It’s only safe to assume it’s Peter’s house, but I’m glad it’s nearly past sunset already.

“I really hope he’s warned Elizabeth, or this could get really awkward,” he mutters, rapping on the door.

Luckily, it’s Peter who opens the door, looks around outside, and ushers us both in.

“Are you alright?” is his first question.

“We made it out alive. Thankfully,” Neal says.

“They’re calling it a kidnapping gone bad,” he explains, pacing around his dining room table. “Woodford, Moreau, Kirby, and Foley are all confirmed dead.”

“Like, confirmed? Bodies in the morgue, confirmed?” I ask. My hands still shake a little. They’ve been shaking since the explosion.

“We have enough evidence to say they’re gone,” Peter says. “Now, before my wife gets home, I want explanations. You—“ he points at me. “You first.”

I’m taken aback, but I start from the beginning. Who I was, where I grew up in Brooklyn—all the way to the Pink Panthers and Matthew Keller and Neal.

“You’re the one who tipped us off,” he murmurs over the beer bottle he brings to his lips. “You’re also the one who got into the White Collar division.”

“Blackmailed by Moreau, I might add,” I say. He just smirks. He smiles until it fades.

“So, Neal. Neal, I knew you were alive. I knew it.”

“You found the storage container?” Neal asks with a little enthusiasm, sipping from the wine Peter had found him. He starts to grin, but tries to hide it.

“I found the storage container. I almost thought about looking for you in Paris. But…”

“Why didn’t you?” Neal pointedly asks. “You’ve found me before.”

“I’ve found you many, many times before,” Peter corrects. “I didn’t… didn’t think you wanted to be found this time.”

“You knew why I had to go.”

“I know why you had to go, I just…” Peter sighs. “I miss having you around, Neal. I miss having you on cases. We all miss you.” He seems to save it at the last moment, but I know. I can taste the tension in the air.

Neal’s eyes drift. “Then you know why I’m going to have to leave again.”

“Why can’t you stay here—“

“You know why. It’s just not possible. Not with your job, not with the statute of limitations.”

“You’re dead—“

“And what happens when I miraculously come back? What happens then? I’m not going back to prison. I’m not.”

“Where will you go?” Peter says, exasperated. I wish I could help him. I really do. I drink from my own beer in frustration.

“Probably back to Paris,” he says. “I’ve made a home there.”

“I wish you could have made a home here,” Peter murmurs.

“Can I offer a truce?” I say. Both pairs of eyes fly to me. “Neal, you can’t contact Peter directly. It’s too dangerous. For the both of you. What if I… what if I act as a conduit? I’m headed back to Paris, Peter… Peter you can use me as a confidential informant. Peter and I stay in contact, and therefore you two maintain contact. It’s all we’ve got.”

Peter seems to brighten immediately. “You would do that?”

“You saved my life. You kept me out of jail. I would do anything.”

Neal just smiles. He smiles and nods, lifting his glass. “To Paris.”

“To Paris,” I say. As we clink our drinks, Peter stands, hearing the door open.

“Hey, hun!” he calls to who I assume is his wife. Neal, though, takes the opportunity to turn to me.

“Thank you.”

“I’ve promised a few phone calls. It’s the least I can do.”

“I don’t think you realize how important this is to me.”

“I can wager a guess.”

He leans forward, pulling me into a kiss. “I mean it. Thank you.”

I accept his kiss with my own smile, closing my eyes even as he pulls away. “I don’t think he told his wife.”

“She’s going to lose it,” he murmurs, his lips still nearly touching mine.

I hear Peter from the other room. “El, hun, remember my theory about Neal…”

“Our Neal? Or our Neal?”

“That he was alive? And in Paris?”

“Peter, what are you saying? Can I please put my bag down? And take our son, he’s getting heavy—“

We hear the transfer of both, which is a good thing, because Neal stands up as she comes into eyeshot of the kitchen.

She stops, eyes wide, hands frozen—like she’s literally seen a ghost.

“Peter—“

“It’s him. He’s real.”

She cycles from happy, to surprised, to pissed off, and suddenly she’s crying and approaching Neal. She looks like she’s going to touch him to make sure, but she throws herself into his arms. He envelopes her in a hug.

“You asshole!” She hisses through her teeth. “A Bordeaux. A Bordeaux! You could have sent a note—more than just a storage container—Neal! Neal.”

“I’ve missed you too, Elizabeth.”

After wiping her tears, she looks to me. “Who’s she?” She says, unceremoniously gesturing to me then looking to Peter.

“This is Neal’s friend. She’s the reason he’s here. Uh…”

I see him struggling on my name, and he gives me a slight smirk. He knows what he’s doing, but for the first time in a long time, I go with my gut.

“Bridget. Bridget McTaggart.”

I lean forward to shake her hand, but she pushes it away and opts to give me a big hug.

“Thank you. Thank you.”

Once she recovers, once I recover, because suddenly, I’m emotional, I see Neal’s face. His bright blue, his cerulean eyes, they well with tears. I look to Peter too. He’s holding his child, his son—Neal—a smiling toddler.

Peter, on the other hand, finally has a reason to look smug. “Hey, Neal?” I expect Neal to say something, but instead, the toddler in Peter’s arms looks up to his father. “Neal, I want you to meet someone very special. His name is Neal, too.”

I can’t see the exchange. I can’t see it, because I’m busy trying not to sob.

Everything’s going to be okay. This is not the life I was supposed to lead. It took a strange turn getting to this point, but I’m happy. I’ve done good.

I can finally breathe.


	13. Coda: Balance

I’ve finally made it back to Paris. With wounds healed, tracks covered, and certain people dead, the air really does smell a little sweeter.

I’ve went back to my real name. I thought it was time to bring it back, especially if we agree on what we are discussing at the present.

I can’t be the first one to the Tuileries. They all have to be milling about somewhere.

“Bea.”

I turn at the sound of Cee’s voice. She looks healthy. “Good to see you in one piece.”

“You too. You’ve definitely solidified your nickname as C4.”

She shrugs. “I’ve fallen for it a little. What about you? Still the Virtuoso?”

I look off into the Gardens. “I don’t think so. Not anymore.”

“What about the Firebird?” Vi says, this time, without a disguise. She’s been coming out more lately without one. It’s nice to see her face in the partly sunny sky. “I know it’s your favorite, and like a phoenix, you can rise again.”

I chuckle, but I do like Vi’s suggestion. That one’s going to have to stay.

“Is Neal coming?” Cee’s the first to ask. She nonchalantly hands Vi a five dollar bill, who chuckles and slips it in her pocket. I don’t even want to ask.

“I’m not sure,” I say. I’m really not. I haven’t seen him in almost a month—not since New York. Not since he stayed behind. Frankly, I didn’t know if he made it back to the country, but he did know my proposition. The one we three had heard from Hardison. “I don’t know if he’s going to show.”

Vi lets out a single chuckle, looking past me. “Looks like we’ve got more than just Neal.”

When I look over my shoulder, I see both Mozzie and Neal approach from the north.

“Hope you don’t mind that I brought a friend,” Neal says, slipping his hands in his pockets as he nods to us under his fedora.

All three of us know what Mozzie’s capable of. We know how important he could be if we do decide to do what I hope we’re going to do.

I hope. That’s the first time that thought has crossed my mind in a long time.

“Heard someone pulled a job at the Musée Rodin a couple of days ago,” I say. “Someone leaving a calling card under the name ‘Revenant’.”

Neal doesn’t break eye contact. “Sounds like someone is feeling a bit of rebirth.”

“I’d say. And the sculpture stolen?”

“A beautiful piece based on Dante’s Divine Comedy,” Mozzie interjects. “Ah, yes. But I wouldn’t know how nice it looks up close, now would I?”

We chuckle, we fall into silence.

“Moreau’s gone,” Cee begins. “Everyone who’s been chasing us is either dead or at peace.” She glances quickly to Neal. “My friends are running a crew in the U.S. They’re solving the problems the cops can’t solve, and they’re going after corporate bad guys. They’ve offered us the European division.”

“We stop running,” I say, “We stop hiding. We start fighting back. We become the good guys again. We’ve got a hacker, a hitter, a grifter, a thief, and it turns out we’ve got a mastermind.” I look to Mozzie. He straightens a little with confidence. “I think we can do this.”

“I’m in,” Vi immediately says. When we all look to her, she shrugs. “I can only be alone for so long.”

“You all know I’m in,” Cee says. Eliot’s banking on it, I know for a fact. If she’s in, they can stay in better contact, and I know we’re all better off that way.

I look to Neal. From under the hat, I used to not be able to read him. A month and a half ago, I may not have, but now, the look he gives me is one of complete and utter resolve.

“I’m in as long as Moz is in.”

Mozzie looks up to Neal with a little bit of disbelief, but he quickly nods.

“We’ll need an HQ,” Vi says.

“We can pool our resources and find a location in Paris,” Neal suggests. “We can start at my place.”

“It’s a fairly centralized location,” I add.

“Eliot has given us a solid case to start,” Cee says.

I look to each of them—eager, excited, unwary, ready to start anew. Before I realize it, we all glance to Mozzie. He’s been the one to connect us all, intentionally or unintentionally. We all wait for him.

"We can't change the direction of the wind, but we can adjust the sails,” he says. “I think it’s time for a little payback.”

We head off towards Neal’s apartment, Mozzie falling into step with Vi almost immediately. They start conversing wildly about some conspiracy theory. When I look over my shoulder, Cee walks by herself, looking perfectly content, her hands in her pockets. For the first time in a long time, I see her smile.

Neal saunters beside me, also looking particularly smug.

“Didn’t think this was going to sort out the way it did?” I ask, automatically linking arms with him.

“I didn’t think talking to the French pianist who played above one of my favorite cafes in Paris would lead me to seeing my best friends again and starting a crew, no.”

“When you put it like that…”

“I’m glad it happened,” he says quickly. “I think I needed this.”

“I needed this, too.”

“So. Another bird told me you were going by a new name.”

“Was that bird going by the moniker the Raven?”

“It’s a distinct possibility.”

“And what did she say?”

He smirks. “You’re going by the Firebird now.”

“Oh, is that what she’s telling you?”

“She did say she came up with it. Are you going to use it?”

“Time for a change. I’m a different person than I was before.”

“It’s a fitting nickname. Surprises me it hasn’t come to you sooner.”

“Oh, it has. This time, it’s the right time.”

“What, you lived the ballet?”

I glance up to him. “What do you mean?”

“The hero gets stuck in the villain’s realm, which seems unending,” he seems to recite. “The hero finds that one, magical companion, then falls in love and goes after the villain. The hero—with the companion’s intervention—has enough strength to take down the villain, and everyone lives happily ever after. Seems relatively close to me.”

“Is that what you think this is? Happily ever after?”

He stops in his tracks, unhooking our arms until I face him.

“It’s about as close to happily ever after I think we’re going to get,” he says.

I take that. I know he’s right when he kisses me in the middle of the Tuileries.

I’m okay with this ever after.


End file.
